C-Store Retailers Take On Atlanta

New products, hot topics such as social media and loyalty programs, and industry wins made this year's NACS Show a success

Each year, Convenience Store News offers comprehensive coverage of the NACS Show — pre-NACS coverage, the Show Dailies live at the show, and post-NACS coverage in the December issue. In this Checking In we are bringing you the highlights a month earlier than usual, and will offer more detail and photo pages next month.

After the 2010 NACS Show kicked off with educational sessions and a welcome reception at the Georgia Aquarium, the opening general session saw the auditorium in the Georgia World Conference Center filled to capacity with more than 3,000 show attendees. NACS Chairman Jay Ricker of Ricker Oil and NACS President and CEO Hank Armour discussed how the industry navigated important issues such as the BP oil spill and credit card transaction fees.

Ricker compared this year's BP disaster with the Exxon Valdez incident years ago, pointing out that some retailers saw their fuel sales drop 60 percent due to consumer backlash then. In contrast, sales at Ricker's BP stations fell only a few percentage points despite all the bad publicity, rumors and misinformation generated by an increasingly fragmented media. "Why?" he asked. "The one word answer is 'engagement.'"

The retailer commended NACS for "changing the national conversation about our industry" and for successfully communicating "our side of the story on key fueling issues."

Armour picked up on Ricker's engagement theme, noting how the engagement of NACS' members helped achieve victory in a nearly 10-year battle against Visa, MasterCard and the card-issuing banks for debit card transaction fee reform.

"Purpose, perseverance and people" were the key factors in making a difference, he said.

However, Armour noted, the war isn't over. NACS will be vigilant to ensure that the new transaction standards issued by the Federal Reserve result in a significant reduction in fees, he said, adding: "But the banks will fight us every step of the way."

RETAILER EDUCATION

The workshop sessions began Tuesday, Oct. 5, and were all devoted to top-of-mind c-store retailing issues. Sessions varied on topics from PCI compliance, sustainability, promotions, digital marketing, and an entire track devoted to single-store retailers.

Attendees of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) session, "Keeping Your Budget, Brand and Sanity Intact in a Data Security Breach," learned ways to prevent, detect and respond to a breach from Tim Horton, vice president of business development at First Data Corp., and Robert McMillion, director of solution development at RSA.

"Convenience stores are at danger for attack when the data is in transit from the swipe at the store to the processor, because they don't really store data long term," said McMillion.

When it comes to PCI, prevention, detection and response are all important, but since detection and response are the hardest, most people focus on prevention, which "slows the bad guys down," McMillion told attendees. But detection is extremely important because the average time between when a breach occurs and when it is detected is four months — "the longer it is between the breach and the detection, the worse it is to clean it up."

Meanwhile, the message from green consultants Justin Doak and Lisa Russell of Ecoxera was that it's important for retailers to stay a half-step ahead of consumers when it comes to sustainability and green initiatives. "Best practices today will become mandatory tomorrow, so if you do it now, you will have an advantage on your competitors," they pointed out in their session, entitled "International Sustainability Best Practices." Doak and Russell went on to present best practices from a number of companies including Walmart, Tesco, Nike, Chipotle, and Best Buy.

The speakers also noted no company in the c-store industry has yet taken the leadership role on the sustainability front, so the market is wide open for a retailer to make its mark as the green c-store leader.

And not surprisingly, digital marketing was a hot topic at this year's NACS Show, as several of the workshops provided attendees with the dos and don'ts of harnessing the power of social media, as well as mobile and e-mail marketing.

In the session entitled "Fueling Inside Sales from the Forecourt," three retailers discussed ways to entice consumers to a site, how to get them from the forecourt into the store, and then how to maximize sales to them when they enter the store.

Jon Bausman, director of media and brand development for Ricker Oil, showed how companies are using mobile and social networking effectively to draw traffic. Then Norman Toriano, fuel operations manager for Wawa, discussed how important it is to highlight a building and make it enticing for all customers so they feel comfortable going from the gas pumps into the store. He also showed a number of ways that Wawa advertises at the pump through signage and audio messaging. Finally, Rob Forsyth, president of FKG Oil Co., which operates Moto Mart convenience stores, said leading the customer from the front door to the pay counter is a "journey of the mind." From the look of the store to the positioning of merchandise, everything impacts a customer's decision on whether to buy or not buy. "Either you're dealing with a customer's state of mind or you're not dealing at all," Forsythe concluded.

For more coverage of the NACS Show visit our microsite, www.csnewsattheshow.com and stay tuned for the December 2010 issue of Convenience Store News for full coverage of the trade show.

For comments, please contact Tammy Mastroberte, Executive Editor, at [email protected].