Glossary entry

Spanish term or phrase:

libre servicio v autoservicio

English translation:

self-service

Added to glossary by Jane Martin
May 20, 2014 13:36
10 yrs ago
7 viewers *
Spanish term

libre servicio v autoservicio

Spanish to English Marketing Business/Commerce (general)
I am working on a PPT presentation for a large food company in Spain and on one of the graphs giving details of sales per category of shop, there is this category 'Autoserv + Libre Serv.' To me these both mean 'self-service'. Other categories are Hiper, Super, Super pequeño. My question is: are these two different types of shop and if so, what would we call them in English to differentiate between them and would it be incorrect to lump them together as 'self-service'. Thank you.

Proposed translations

12 mins
Selected

self-service

They're both the same. It just means that you go in the shop and browse, putting the products you need in a shopping bag, and pay at the till.

Regarding the second question, "hipermercado" is a superstore, "super" is a regular supermarket, and "super pequeño" is a small supermarket.

If you're from the UK, it would be similar to the difference between Tesco, Tesco Metro and Tesco Express. I'm not 100% sure how to express that though.
Example sentence:

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tienda_de_autoservicio

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minorista#Comercio_de_libre_servicio

Note from asker:
Thank you - you just confirmed what I was thinking. The client also confirmed this. J
Peer comment(s):

neutral philgoddard : This is the literal meaning, but most stores are self service.
52 mins
Not in Spain they are not. If this is a food company, depending on what they sell, customers would need to ask for it. This would be the case for fruit, vegetables, meat products, most types of cheese, etc. in the large majority of Spanish shops.
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "I checked with the client and this is what they wanted. Thank you."
+1
24 mins

Convenience stores

They do sound the same to me, but I wouldn't use the term self-service in this context. I think we'd normally refer to them as convenience stores - usually smaller than supermakets, but still with the concept of helping yourself to what you need (rather than being served).

I think you would need to check with the client to find out their exact definition of each, in order to find a differentiating word in English, such as grocery shop / small shop etc, because they do overlap but they obviously are differentiating them here for their own statistics.
Peer comment(s):

neutral philgoddard : I agree about checking with the client. Convenience stores is a reasonable guess, but I'm not sure.
42 mins
agree Marina Ilari
43 mins
Something went wrong...
Term search
  • All of ProZ.com
  • Term search
  • Jobs
  • Forums
  • Multiple search