Core-Mark Enhances Customer Technology Platform to Maximize Turns & Profits

WESTLAKE, Texas — Core-Mark International is teaming up with JDA Software to stimulate sales growth and profitability for its convenience store customers.

The company is integrating its existing customer technology platform with JDA Software's offerings in Space Planning, Category Knowledge Base and Assortment Optimization. The move will enable convenience retailers to generate and access information to determine the best product mix, assortment and space utilization for maximizing turns and profits, according to Core-Mark.

"By adding JDA Software's innovative solutions, we are further optimizing the ability of our technology to help our customers grow sales and maximize profits in the hyper-competitive convenience retail market," said Chris Murray, senior vice president, marketing, Core-Mark.

"This integrated solution was designed to ensure upgradability as technology changes and business needs evolve. It puts customers on the cutting edge of technology and will be a focal point of the Core-Mark Center of Excellence, which is currently under development. Retailers can count on us to have the right solutions for now, and in the years to come," Murray added.

The JDA Software solutions will provide Core-Mark customers with easier access to data sources and digital partners, allowing for quicker, more well-informed and effective product assortment and shelf space placement decisions, the company explained.

When integrated into the Core-Mark Center of Excellence (COE), the JDA Software programs will help retailers and vendors gain real-time insights on trends and other areas of opportunity.

They will play a key role in the COE's Data & Insights Center, where a virtual product placement and store layout tool helps facilitate visualization of data-based design to create an optimal shopping experience.

Core-Mark broke ground on its COE on Sept. 26 and offered a virtual tour at the 2019 NACS Show, held Oct. 2-4 in Atlanta, as Convenience Store News previously reported.

Specifically, Core-Mark will use the following JDA Software programs:

• Space Planning — The tool uses workflows and 3D graphical displays to create profitable space plans based on real-world consumer needs and behaviors.
• Category Knowledge Base —The relational data repository manages a retailer's huge volume of information, empowering its staff to make fact-based, results-oriented decisions.
• Assortment Optimization —The space-aware planning solution integrates spatial and planogram data with point-of-sale, market and demographic information.

"Delivering the right products on the right shelves in the right store will always be paramount to a superior customer experience," said Todd McCourtie, global accounts director, Scottsdale, Ariz.-based JDA Software. "We're happy to support Core-Mark's strategy, underpinned with our category management solutions that will enable localization balanced with the efficiency and agility needed in an ever-changing, dynamic retail sector."

Westlake-based Core-Mark offers a full range of products, marketing programs and technology solutions to approximately 43,000 customer locations in the United States, and Canada through 32 distribution centers.