Glossary
The vocabulary, defined plainly.
Terms that come up when a property team evaluates an in-building convenience service, including the commercial ones that decide who carries what. Written so you can use them in a meeting without being caught out.
Operating models
- Convenience as a Service
- An operating model in which a provider funds, installs, stocks and runs an in-building supply of everyday items, and the building contributes space and commercial terms. Residents pay per use rather than buying. The provider carries the capital and the recurring work.
- Amenity as a Service
- The same commercial structure as Convenience as a Service, framed from the building's point of view rather than the resident's. The older of the two terms and the one with more established search demand.
- Fixed Rent
- The arrangement where the provider funds, owns, stocks and operates the installation and pays the property at or above the market rent for the floor area it occupies. No capital from the building, and no revenue to it beyond the rent.
- Self-Owned
- The arrangement where the property funds the build and keeps rental and retail revenue, while the provider supplies hardware, software and service for a one-time cost and a recurring plan. More upside, more demand risk.
Hardware
- Convenience hub
- A stocked, software-operated installation inside a building that both lends durable goods and sells consumables. Distinguished from a parcel locker by holding the operator's own inventory rather than someone's delivery.
- Compartment bank
- A run of individually lockable compartments in a single installation. Described in metres of wall run and in compartment count, which are not interchangeable: compartment sizes vary with what the building stocks.
- Kiosk
- The on-unit screen through which someone can browse, pay and open a compartment without a phone. Not optional in any setting where a smartphone cannot be assumed.
- Footprint
- The floor area an installation occupies, usually quoted as wall run in metres by depth. The number that matters commercially, because it is what the building gives up or is paid for.
- Add-on module
- A section bolted onto a core installation for a specific category: a chilled drinks unit, a freezer section, a wellness bay. Widens the footprint and can usually be added after launch.
- Brand band
- The lit panel carrying the building's or operator's identity. Cosmetic, and the main reason an installation reads as lobby furniture rather than as equipment.
Operations
- Replenishment run
- A scheduled visit to refill consumables, check and clean returned durables, remove damaged items and apply any agreed change to the selection. Driven by measured consumption rather than a fixed calendar.
- Shrinkage
- Inventory lost to theft, damage or non-return. Real in any shared-inventory operation and a line any honest model budgets for. Under a provider-owned arrangement it is entirely the provider's exposure.
- Dwell time
- How long a borrowed item stays out before it is returned. Long dwell times reduce how many people one item can serve, which is the whole economic basis of shared inventory.
- Turn
- How many times a single item is borrowed or sold in a period. The measure of whether a line is earning its compartment.
- Unmet request
- Something a resident asked for and could not find. Demand that never becomes a transaction, invisible to anyone without an app capturing it, and one of the more useful signals for deciding what to stock next.
- Availability
- The share of attempts where the thing somebody wanted was actually there. A more honest service measure than uptime, because a working installation with an empty compartment has still failed the resident.
- Support routing
- Directing a resident issue to whoever can resolve it, without it landing on the building's on-site team. The distinction between a managed service and hardware with a phone number.
Measurement
- Weekly active residents
- The number of distinct residents using the service in a week, usually as a share of units. The most informative single measure of whether an installation is working.
- Repeat use
- Whether the same residents return. Separates a launch novelty from an established habit, and is what a twelve-month review should actually examine.
- Attach rate
- The proportion of residents who have used the service at all. A ceiling measure: attach rate says how many tried, weekly actives says how many stayed.
- Contribution margin
- What an installation earns after the cost of stock and service, before fixed overheads. The per-building figure worth asking for, because headline revenue hides the cost of running the thing.
- Gross revenue retention
- The share of recurring revenue retained across a period, excluding any growth from existing customers. In this category it mostly answers whether buildings renew.
- Positioning effect
- Any benefit that cannot be counted: whether an amenity helped close a lease, improved renewal, or was mentioned by a broker. Real and unquantifiable, and it should be labelled as such rather than modelled.
Software
- Resident app
- The application through which residents browse, reserve, unlock, pay, request items and report faults. Where the usage signal that drives stocking decisions is generated.
- Access control
- The system governing who may open which compartment and when. Designed to keep functioning locally through a network outage, reconciling once connectivity returns.
- Operator reporting
- The view given to the property team: usage, availability, support volume, resident requests. Distinguished from a projection by containing only things that happened.
- Demand learning
- Using measured usage, reservations and unmet requests to propose changes to what an installation carries. The mechanism by which a selection stops being a launch-day guess.
Commercial
- Responsibility matrix
- A document naming a party against every recurring task: stocking, cleaning, repairs, payments, resident support, insurance. The gaps in it are the work the building will end up doing.
- Contractual figure
- A number written into an agreement, as opposed to an estimate. Any proposal mixing the two without saying which is which should be sent back.
- Indicative figure
- A number derived from assumptions, such as a rent estimate from a footprint and a country. Legitimate, useful, and not a quote. Should be visibly marked as one.
- Site survey
- The measured assessment of the actual space before anything is built: dimensions, power, network, accessibility clearances, access for delivery. What a real timeline starts from.
- Make good
- Returning the space to its prior condition at the end of a term: fixings, cabling, finishes. A small cost that becomes a dispute when nobody wrote it down.
Put the vocabulary to work
A proposal that names every recurring responsibility and marks every estimate as one.