2025 Category Excellence in Planogram: Kwik Trip Inc. & Mars Wrigley
Creating an optimal shopping experience for the guest in a specific category relies on the fundamentals of how the shopper interacts with the shelf in-store where the decision is made. Kwik Trip, in collaboration with Mars Wrigley, leveraged insights and consumer decision tree work to remerchandise the confectionery aisle by brand and pack, improving the shopping experience and resulting in category growth and larger baskets.
Jackie Stalsberg identified a list of pilot stores to implement a new merchandising set, and served as the primary liaison with internal Kwik Trip teams to coordinate the in-store execution and supply data for monitoring the test. She presented findings that supported making the merchandising change, which involved gaining alignment from internal stakeholders who had long-held beliefs on the current merchandising flow. She also solicited direct feedback from store managers on how the change was impacting shoppers in their stores.
On its end, Mars Wrigley continually supplied Kwik Trip with new and updated confectionery consumer decision hierarchies and insights on convenience store shopping trends. The company provided updated planograms with the proposed merchandising flow, which could be quickly input into the Kwik Trip system with little additional work needed.
The confectionery category at Kwik Trip saw 11% same-store growth the year the new planogram merchandising was implemented. Chocolate, the largest segment, grew 4.5% in comp-store dollar sales, while the fruity and gum/mints segments were up 22%.
Click here for the full winners' list for the 2025 Convenience Store News Category Excellence Awards.