Southern goods shop, also called general store or grocery, is an indispensible kind of stores in the towns and cities of China, and it is also one of the important industries of commerce.

The southern goods shop mainly deals with food produced from south and north alike, concurrently selling daily commodities. The food are numerous in varieties, such as longan, litchi, sugar, sandalwood from the south; walnut, date, dried persimmon, vermicelli, dried fruit from the north; shark fin, sea cucumber, kelp, jelly fish, dried mussel from the sea; and various tea cakes and pastries, candies, coiled noodles, lotus root starch, cans, bottled wine, seasoning, and so on and so forth. In addition, it also sells washing soda, soap, paper, incense and candle, tinfoil, kerosene, match, etc. Indeed, it has gathered goods from all places and enriches the food varieties for the general public. Especially when festivals come, when there are happy events, marriages, or funerals, or when one need to buy presents, all the articles required can be purchased from the southern goods shop. Some rich families, societies and halls, restaurants and hotels, and entertainment places often have connections with the southern goods shop. The clients only need to provide a shopping list, and then the southern goods shop will deliver all the goods to the requested place.

Apart from direct contacts with wholesalers and factories, the southern goods shop also need to specially send people to other places to purchase genuine products so as to gain credits for the shop. The key points of service for the shop assistant are affable attitude and proficient operation; in particular, it is important to obtain high skills, i.e., capable of wrapping dried fruit with coarse paper into a red triangle-shaped pack, which is commonly called "triangle pack". When packing presents like bottled wine, it is also essential to make the pack fast and presentable so that the customers would be pleased.