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Aiken County, SC — Convenience stores Saturation

How many convenience stores exist per person present — residents plus daytime workers — by ZIP code, compared with the U.S. average. Establishment data: Census ZBP 2023. Population: ACS 2024 5-year. 21 ZIP codes analyzed.

Includes: Convenience stores · Corner stores · Small-format food & fuel marts. Counted together because official statistics use one 445120 code.

Measured density: Range spans bands — 0.48× the U.S. rate (between 0.48× and 2.17× once withheld ZIP cells are counted)

Why a range: Census does not publish a ZIP-by-industry count when that ZIP has 0–2 businesses. 19 ZIP cells in this county are withheld, 14 of them with residents. Each could hold 0, 1, or 2 businesses: counting them all as 0 gives the low end, counting them all as 2 gives the high end — the data cannot say where the truth sits. The density range uses only the populated cells, since ZIPs without residents are excluded from per-person rates. How ranges work

Range spans the U.S. rate   Aiken County convenience stores — 48–217% of the U.S. rate

8 convenience stores are counted in Aiken County — 0.4 per 10,000 people present (residents + daytime workers), 48% of the U.S. rate of 0.9.

On the comparable ZIP set (ZIPs with a published count in every year), the total has stayed roughly flat between 2015 and 2023 (8 → 8).

Measured supply density is highest in 29801 (Aiken), 29841 (North Augusta) — well above the national rate. On measured density alone, the lowest-density residential ZIPs with a published count are 29841 (North Augusta), 29801 (Aiken).

Census County Business Patterns (2023) puts the county-wide count at 16 establishments, including locations in ZIP codes that do not map to a ZCTA — so it can run slightly above the sum of the ZIP rows on this page. It is annual, so it lags more than QCEW.

Measured density: Aiken County sits at 48% of the U.S. rate for convenience stores. 14 ZIPs with population have no published count (each 0–2 businesses), so the true per-capita rate is between 48% and 217% of the U.S. rate. Why. The highest measured density is in 29801 and 29841; the lowest measured density is in 29841 and 29801.

This is a supply-side read: it counts existing convenience stores and the people present, not foot traffic, income, rent, or whether locals want more. Treat low density as a question to check, not an answer.

Convenience stores
8–46
published count; upper bound counts each withheld ZIP cell as 2 (19 cells) (2023)
Per 10,000 present
0.4
residents + daytime workers
U.S. average
0.9
per 10,000 present
County index
0.48×
vs. U.S.
Latest year (CBP)
16
2023 — $1M annual payroll
Residents
159,147
16 ZIPs with data
Workers
45,174
jobs located in county

Is the area growing?

Population
179,245
Census PEP, July 1 2024
Change since 2020
+6.0%
+10,071 people
Net migration 2024
+1,953
international +352, domestic +1,601
Jobs located here
52,259
LODES 2022, −1.5% since 2019

Aiken County had an estimated 179,245 residents on July 1, 2024 — 6.0% more than in 2020 (+10,071). In the latest year it gained 2,211 people: births minus deaths +252, international migration +352, domestic migration +1,601. Components are published separately and may not sum exactly.

52,259 jobs were located in the county in 2022 (−1.5% since 2019), and 66,962 employed residents lived there (+3.7% since 2019). LODES counts wage and salary jobs covered by unemployment insurance plus federal jobs; it excludes the self-employed and military, and counts jobs rather than unique people. 2019→2022 spans the pandemic, so read it as one change, not a trend.

Population and migration say whether the customer base is growing. They do not say whether people want another business of this type. Definitions and limits →  ·  Full county detail →

Nonemployer businesses

Not shown. Census publishes convenience stores only combined with vending machine operators, so a convenience-only nonemployer count is not published.

Census Nonemployer Statistics 2024 (NAICS 2022). We do not approximate this figure.

Saturation map

Each ZIP area is shaded by its density of this business type per person present (residents + workers) vs. the U.S. average. Click any ZIP to zoom to its boundary, see its numbers, and switch to aerial imagery. Individual mapped shops appear as dots at street level — Show locations zooms you in to them (scroll or double-click to zoom).

Basemap:
Under 50% 50–100% 100–150% 150–250% 250%+ 0–2 (not published) / no data ZIP total (dot size) Mapped shop (OpenStreetMap, street level)

Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, tiles by OpenFreeMap.

White dots are ZIP totals from the official Census count — the bigger the dot, the more convenience stores in that ZIP. They are aggregated, not individual shops. Turquoise dots are individual locations mapped in OpenStreetMap, shown only at street level; they are crowd-sourced and indicative, may be incomplete, and do not equal the official counts. Only the official ZIP totals feed the saturation index.

Market trend — up 0% since 2015

Number of convenience stores in Aiken County across 2015–2023, on a consistent set of ZIP codes present in every year — so changes are real, not ZIP-boundary artifacts. 2015/2018 are pre-pandemic baselines; 2020/2021 are COVID-distorted.

8
2015
8
2018
9
2020
9
2021
8
2022
8
2023

Highest measured density

ZIP
vs. U.S. average
Index
29801 Aiken
147%
29841 North Augusta
91%

Lowest measured density

ZIP
vs. U.S. average
Index
29841 North Augusta
91%
29801 Aiken
147%
Low measured density is not evidence of opportunity. A ZIP with few convenience stores may simply lack foot traffic, retail space, or demand. We rank only residential and mixed ZIPs here; employment hubs and visitor destinations are listed separately below. ZIPs where Census did not publish a count (0–2 businesses) are not ranked: they may be the least served of all, but the data cannot tell 0 from 1 or 2. Verify those locally.

All ZIP codes

Click a column header to sort. Index = convenience stores per 10,000 people present (residents + 0.5×workers) ÷ the U.S. average. 100% = exactly average.

ZIPNeighborhood ResidentsWorkersConvenience stores Per 10kIndexStatus
29801Aiken 31,10812,484 5 1.3 147% Above average
29841North Augusta 32,3427,420 3 0.8 91% Below average
29105Monetta 1,621125 0–2 — — Not published
29137Salley 2,24860 0–2 — — Not published
29164Wagener 4,830399 0–2 — — Not published
29802Aiken —956 0–2 — — Not published
29803Aiken 40,69913,891 0–2 — — Not published
29804Aiken —29 0–2 — — Not published
29805Aiken 4,9351,881 0–2 — — Not published
29808Aiken —6,579 0–2 — — Not published
29809New Ellenton 2,301446 0–2 — — Not published
29816Bath 1,09236 0–2 — — Not published
29822Clearwater —225 0–2 — — Not published
29828Gloverville 48937 0–2 — — Not published
29829Graniteville 12,3853,596 0–2 — — Not published
29831Jackson 4,394937 0–2 — — Not published
29834Langley 259130 0–2 — — Not published
29842Beech Island 8,1022,969 0–2 — — Not published
29851Warrenville 9,070689 0–2 — — Not published
29856Windsor 3,27274 0–2 — — Not published
29861North Augusta —26 0–2 — — Not published

Scroll the table sideways to see all columns.

Find an actual space in Aiken

The numbers above tell you how the market looks. To find a specific storefront, these marketplaces list available retail space for lease.

LoopNet
Largest commercial marketplace
Browse Aiken retail space →
Crexi
Free listings + market data
Browse Aiken retail space →
CityFeet
Retail space for lease
Browse Aiken retail space →

Open vacancy data (actual empty units) is only published by some cities; where it exists we show it directly. Listings above are third-party.

Census withholds some ZIP-by-industry cells to protect small businesses. 0–2 means the cell was not published (Census publishes industry counts only at 3+ per ZIP), so the ZIP is left unranked rather than counted as zero. ~ means the count is estimated from the broader industry group and can be off by a business or two.

Follow Aiken County and convenience stores

When a data vintage changes or a section of this report is revised, we post it to a public update feed. No email address, no account, no tracking — and nothing is sent unless something actually changed.

Subscribe to updates (RSS) How these numbers are built →

Methodology & sources

Establishments. U.S. Census ZIP Code Business Patterns (ZBP 2023), NAICS 445120 — convenience retailers. Counts establishments with paid employees. ZBP is published annually with a ~2-year lag.

Fresh county signal. This industry has no clean QCEW series, so the freshest county signal is Census County Business Patterns 2023: 16 establishments and $1M in annual payroll county-wide. This count includes locations in ZIP codes that do not map to a ZCTA, so it can be slightly higher than the sum of the ZIP rows. CBP is annual and slower than QCEW. It cannot be broken down by ZIP.

Population. U.S. Census American Community Survey 2024 5-year ZCTA population (table B01003). Workers are the ZIP's total employment from the same 2023 ZBP file.

Demand ("people present"). Demand comes from residents and daytime workers: residents + 0.5 × workers. This is the single documented assumption in the model and can be tuned.

Index. index = (ZIP establishments ÷ ZIP demand × 10,000) ÷ the U.S. average for this industry (0.91 per 10,000 present). It is a supply-side density measure; it does not capture income, rent, tourism, or whether locals actually want more.

Read the full methodology →  ·  Data sources & vintages →

BizGapMap — free, no-login small-business saturation reports for major U.S. counties. Built entirely from public U.S. Census, BLS, and IRS data (ZBP 2023, ACS 2024 5-year, PEP 2024, LODES, QCEW, IRS SOI). No forecasts, no revenue guesses — withheld cells are marked, and the few derived counts are labelled as estimates.