Difference Between Departmental Store And Supermarket

Difference Between Departmental Store And Supermarket

The major dissimilarities or difference between departmental store and supermarket can be highlighted as follows:

1. Introduction

Departmental Store: Very popular form of retailing institution that deals with large varieties of products (offers almost all kinds of products) under a single building.

Supermarket: Type of retailing institution that generally deals with food items (vegetables, milk, fruits, meat etc) and household products.

2. Product Variety

Departmental Store: It deals with wide range of products. It offers all kinds of products to the customers.

Supermarket: It looks like a large grocery store and deals with limited range of products (especially food products and household products)

3. Operating Cost

Departmental Store: It requires more capital to operate and manage departmental store.

Supermarket: It requires relatively less cost to operate supermarket.

4. Price

Departmental Store: Price of the products are high in departmental store.

Supermarket: Prices are lower than departmental store.

5. After Sales Services

Departmental Store: It provides after sales services such as free home delivery, installation service etc.

Supermarket: No after sales services are provided

6. Credit Facility

Departmental Store: It may provide credit facility to regular and loyal customers

Supermarket: It does not provide credit facility (only cash sales).

   Also Read: 

Difference Between Departmental Store And Multiple Shops

Difference Between Cooperative Society And Joint Stock Company

7. Size/Area

Departmental Store: It is bigger in size with many floors.

Supermarket: It is smaller in size while comparing to departmental store.

8. Management And Control

Departmental Store: It is very difficult to manage and control departmental store because of several departments and large number of employees.

Supermarket: It is easy to manage and control supermarket because of limited products, limited divisions and less number of employees.

Departmental Store Vs Supermarket (Comparison Chart)

Basis	Departmental Store	Supermarket
Introduction	Form of retail institution that deals with all kinds of products under a roof	Form of retail institution that deals with food items
Product Variety	Wide range of products	Limited range of products
Operating Cost	High	Less
Product Price	Higher	Lower
After Sales Service	Yes	No
Credit Facility	Yes	No
Size/Area	Bigger	Smaller
Management/Control	Difficult	Easy

I hope this post is helpful to understand the difference between departmental store and supermarket and to make comparison between them.