Own the shop.
Hire the manager.
Akontec sets up convenience stores and specialist groceries in the USA and UK for owners living somewhere else. We find the site, clear the licences, fit the store, build the supply chain and hire the team — then run buying, systems and back office from India.
Of our four ventures this has the largest physical footprint and the least remote leverage. Better you know it on the first screen than in month four.
Franchise, specialist, independent
United States & United Kingdom
Site search to opening day
Every trading day, non-negotiable
This one is not hands-off.
A store opens in the morning, serves people across a counter, takes deliveries, manages stock on shelves and closes at night. Every one of those things happens in a building, and none of them can be done from Chennai.
- A store manager is required during trading hours, and paid whether the day is busy or not
- Shift staff scale with opening hours, not with sales
- Stock is physical: it arrives, it sits on a shelf, some of it is stolen and some of it expires
- Customers walk in, which means location determines revenue more than anything you can influence remotely
Plenty of people will sell you a store as passive income. It is not, and an owner who believed it will be unhappy by month three. If you want genuinely low-touch ownership, our short-stay rental venture is the better fit and we will say so.
Roughly a third of the job is screen work.
Not nothing, and it is the part most independent store owners do badly because they are behind the till.
- Buying and price files. Supplier terms, cost price changes, promotional allowances and margin by line, reviewed continuously
- Range and space. What earns its shelf and what does not, decided from EPOS data rather than habit
- Online grocery listings. Delivery platforms now carry convenience ranges and are a genuine second revenue line
- Shrinkage analysis. Stock loss patterns by category, shift and time of day — visible in the data long before anyone notices on the floor
- Compliance calendar. Licence renewals, age-restricted sales training, inspections and insurance
- Accounts and reporting. Daily banking reconciliation and a monthly pack you can actually act on
Boring, local, and hard to disrupt.
Convenience retail is not a growth story. It is a durability story, and for an owner who wants a real asset rather than a bet, that is the point.
Demand does not disappear
People buy milk, bread, drinks and cigarettes in recessions and in booms. Footfall moves. It does not vanish.
Cash converts immediately
You are paid at the till. No platform payout cycle, no thirty-day invoice. Working capital sits in stock, not receivables.
A specialist range is defensible
A general store competes with everyone. A community grocery competes with far fewer, and earns more per basket.
It has a resale value
Clean books, a licence in good standing and a stable manager make a sellable asset. Not true of every small business.
Gross margins are thin and the mix decides everything. Tobacco and lottery bring people through the door on almost no margin. Chilled, fresh, food-to-go and specialist lines are where the profit is. Labour is usually the largest cost after stock, and shrinkage quietly eats the difference. This is a business of small percentages managed well, not a business of big wins.
What kind of shop.
They differ in how much of the operating system you buy in, how much margin you keep, and how hard it is to compete once you are open.
Franchise or symbol group
You trade under an established convenience brand. They supply the supply chain, the range and planogram, the systems, the promotions and the fascia. You supply the site, the capital and the team.
Specialist grocery
An independent store built around a specific community range — South Asian, halal, African-Caribbean, Eastern European or international foods — with convenience staples alongside. Fewer direct competitors, better margin, and customers who travel to reach you.
Independent convenience
A general neighbourhood convenience store with no brand and no symbol group. Total freedom and the lowest fixed fees, but you compete on location and price against multiples with far better buying power.
It is the only one of the three where you are not competing head-on with better-funded operators on the same products. It carries better margin, it builds a customer who travels past three other shops to reach yours, and if your own sourcing network is in South Asia it is the format where that is worth something rather than nothing.
The site is the business.
In our other three ventures a bad decision can be corrected. A menu can be changed, a listing rewritten, a vehicle sold. A shop is nailed to a pavement on a lease that runs for years.
You cannot market your way out of the wrong location, and you cannot move. This is why site selection takes the longest stage in our plan and why we will walk away from a deal rather than take a site that does not survey well.
What we actually measure
- Footfall counts at different times and days, observed rather than estimated
- Catchment — how many households sit within realistic walking distance, and who they are
- Competition within the catchment, including the multiple two streets away that nobody mentioned
- Parking and access, which matters far more for a grocery basket than for a top-up shop
- Visibility and frontage from the main pedestrian and vehicle flow
- Delivery access for pallets, and whether the street permits it at the hours suppliers arrive
- Lease terms — length, break clause, rent review, repairing obligations and permitted use
A store already trading is often for sale because it is not working. Sometimes it is a genuine retirement sale with good books. Frequently it is a site with declining footfall, an expiring lease or a licence problem. We audit the accounts and the licence history before we let you look at the shelves.
Twelve stages, then we run the back office.
Four of the twelve are shown here. Site selection and licensing take the longest and carry the most risk, which is why they come first.
Format, area & catchment
Weeks 1–3Which format, which town, which catchment. Demographics, competition and the community range that would actually sell there, assessed before any site is viewed.
Site search & survey
Weeks 3–12Sites identified and surveyed on footfall, catchment, competition, access, frontage and lease terms. Existing businesses audited on accounts and licence history.
Licences & permits
Weeks 8–20Business registration, alcohol and tobacco licensing, lottery, food hygiene where a deli or food-to-go counter is planned, and planning or zoning confirmation.
Fit-out, systems & team
Weeks 14–26Shelving, chillers and freezers, EPOS and back-office system, CCTV and security, supplier accounts, then recruiting and training the manager and shift staff.
We earn when you earn.
Three components, and you will know all three before we send a proposal.
- Setup fee — a percentage of establishment cost, quoted once format and location are fixed. Fit-out, equipment and opening stock are excluded from the base.
- Management fee — a flat monthly amount covering buying, systems, reporting and the back office.
- Profit share — a percentage of net operating profit above an agreed threshold, on a defined expense schedule.
A fee on your shelving would point us the wrong way.
Paid a percentage of what you spend, we would earn more by specifying a larger store, more chillers and more opening stock than the catchment supports. In a thin-margin retail business, overstocking is one of the fastest ways to lose money.
Taking a share of operating profit puts us on the same side. When we tell you the site is too big or the range is too wide, it is because we think it costs you.
The profit share is a contractual right under a management agreement. It is not equity. We take no interest in your company, your lease or your stock, and we have no claim on a sale of the business. Fixed term, with exit rights both ways.
Four checks that decide whether a site is a shop.
Rent is the last thing we look at. A cheap unit that cannot get a licence or cannot take a delivery is not cheap.
Licensing prospects
Whether an alcohol licence is realistically obtainable at that address, whether the area is saturated or subject to a cumulative impact policy, and whether local objections are likely. This can be worth a large share of revenue.
Planning & permitted use
Whether retail use is permitted, whether a food counter or hot food needs separate consent, and whether trading hours are restricted by condition.
The physical unit
Power capacity for chillers and freezers, drainage, delivery access for pallets, storage space behind the shop floor, and the repairing obligations in the lease.
Trade evidence
For an existing store: audited accounts, EPOS history, supplier statements and the licence record. For a new site: observed footfall counts and catchment analysis, not the agent's estimate.
If any of the four fails, we say so and the site is dropped — and you have spent nothing beyond the engagement fee. A shop lease is the longest and least reversible commitment in any of our four ventures. It is worth being slow about.
The four that come up every time.
The full list runs to twenty-two, grouped by topic.
Can I really own this from India?
You can own it. You cannot run it. A store needs a manager physically present during trading hours and shift staff to cover the rota, and that payroll is fixed from month one. What genuinely runs from a desk is buying, range decisions, online grocery listings, shrinkage analysis, compliance and reporting. That is roughly a third of the job, and it is the third most independent owners do worst.
Is this passive income?
No. Of the four ventures we operate this is the least passive, and we would rather lose the enquiry than pretend otherwise. If low-touch ownership is what you want, our short-stay rental venture fits far better and we will tell you so on the call.
Why do you recommend a specialist grocery over a general convenience store?
Because a general store competes on the same products as better-funded multiples with better buying power. A specialist range serving a specific community competes with far fewer shops, carries better margin, and draws customers who will pass other stores to reach you. If your own sourcing network reaches South Asia, that is worth something in this format and nothing in the others.
What if the alcohol licence is refused?
Then the revenue model changes materially, which is exactly why we assess licensing prospects before you sign anything rather than after. Licences are granted at the authority's discretion, sometimes after a hearing, and can be limited by local policy. Nobody can guarantee one. We can tell you honestly what the odds look like at a specific address.
See whether the numbers work in your area
A 45-minute consultation covering location, format, licensing, fit-out budget and the manager you will need on the floor. No obligation.