Merging Convenience & Community
LAS VEGAS — Convenience and community have more in common than the same first two letters.
Convenience stores are an integral part of the communities they serve — from supporting youth sports to raising money for schools and everything in between. They are also the eyes and ears of their communities, as highlighted by the industry’s role in combating human trafficking.
The link between the convenience channel and its communities was a key theme as the 2022 NACS Show kicked off its third day on Monday, Oct. 3. The day’s general session featured an address by incoming 2022-2023 NACS Chairman Don Rhoads.
“At my core, and what I am most passionate about, is being a convenience retailer,” he said. “It’s in our company name and it’s in our industry name.”
Rhoads is president and CEO of Convenience Group LLC, based in Vancouver, Wash. The company owns, operates and franchises eight neighborhood convenience stores throughout Washington and Oregon.
One store is located in the Fruit Valley Village neighborhood of Vancouver, an area that some may consider “the wrong side” of town, Rhoads noted. However, he pointed out that grouped with the store are several community organizations, including the Lighthouse Community Credit Bank, Lighthouse Resource Center, and the Community Kitchen.
“Our stores are family-owned and community-driven,” he said.
Rhoads’ philosophy toward convenience retailing mirrors that of the industry. As a whole, the convenience channel donates approximately $1 billion a year. But it goes beyond that number. It is also about how “we lift our communities,” he added.
According to the new chairman, there are three core communities within the channel: the communities that c-store retailers serve; the people; and the industry itself.
“This is an exciting time for the industry,” he said. “As we redefine convenience, let’s redefine community.”
Joining Rhoads for the general session was Jake Wood, founder and chairman of Team Rubicon, a disaster response organization. Similar to the c-store industry, Team Rubicon is “full speed ahead in the communities we serve,” Wood said.
When it comes to serving people, individuals are faced with moments and decisions, and there are five key things to keep in mind, according to Wood:
- We don’t get to choose these moments.
- Sometimes we don’t realize the moment we are facing.
- Some moments we must bet on ourselves.
- Some moments we’ve been preparing for our whole life.
- Some moments try to break us.
It’s important, he pointed out, to never underestimate that moments can have a ripple effect on the community. “Every day we have the opportunity, a moment, to choose to make someone’s life better,” he said.
Checking Out Self-Checkout
Along with each day’s general session, this year’s NACS Show is also providing 45-plus education sessions designed to deliver relevant and stimulating content to attendees.
During a “Self-Checkout Strategies” session, Josh Birdwell, vice president of guest/retail technology at Pilot Co., explained that self-checkout is not as simple as cutting labor. Rather, it is about redeploying labor. “We can move people away from the counter to other areas of the store,” he pointed out.
At Knoxville, Tenn.-based Pilot, implementing self-checkout is part of the company’s $1 billion New Horizons initiative. The travel center operator launched the initiative to overhaul its network of more than 750 locations earlier this year. Currently, the company has self-checkout at 90 locations, and an average of 35 percent of transactions at those locations are made via self-checkout.
A crucial piece of offering self-checkout is customer awareness. At Pilot, self-checkout is “front and center, so its customers do not have to look for it,” Birdwell said.
For Meyer Oil Co., which operates 23 stores and truck stops under the Mach1 banner in Illinois and Indiana, self-checkout is about transforming the customer experience, noted CEO Alan Meyer. The retailer recently went live with self-checkout at its eighth store, and it is currently remodeling older stores to include the system.
Whether a shopper is choosing self-checkout or traditional checkout, the customer experience needs to be consistent. This includes allowing customers to purchase the same products at either option, the presenters advised.
For example, customers at Pilot’s travel centers can prepay for fuel, as well as buy items from inside the store through self-checkout. “We are a fuel retailer, and we want to make sure it is just as good an experience as with a traditional checkout,” Birdwell said.
Self-checkout needs to accept all products — including age-restricted items — and all payment options, Meyer echoed. “That is a must,” he said.
Tapping Into the Power of Private Label
In the retail industry, 17.7 percent of sales dollars and 19.6 percent of unit sales are private label. However, private label only accounts for 3.7 percent of sales dollars in the convenience channel today, Roy Strasburger, CEO of StrasGlobal, cited during the “Turning Private Label Into a Powerhouse Brand” education session at the show.
Private label sales in the convenience channel are growing — they increased 17.8 percent in 2021 vs. 2020 — and this presents a big opportunity for c-store retailers “to create products to make a profit and continually lower costs to achieve the best value for the consumer,” he said.
Spicewood, Texas-based Texas Born (TXB) is one c-store retailer that currently sells private label at its stores. The offering makes up roughly 2 percent of sales at the 46-store chain, according to Benjamin Hoffmeyer, vice president of marketing and merchandising at TXB.
The decision to enter the private label space followed TXB’s rebranding from Kwik Chek Food Stores two years ago. The aim, Hoffmeyer said, was to:
- Build brand equity around the chain’s transition;
- Build sales and profit; and
- Diversify its assortment with products unique to Texas.
The move into private label has not been without a few challenges, including minimum run size hurdles and supply chain issues, he acknowledged. His advice to retailers considering private label is to be flexible, co-brand on some products, and identify local or smaller vendors.
Another Texas-based convenience store retailer, Yesway, is all in on private label for both its Yesway and Allsup’s convenience stores. The company took a big leap into the space with its 2019 acquisition of the Allsup’s chain, which had a solid private label offering. Today, Yesway has more than 200 private label items across its 420-plus stores.
The strategy was to build brand awareness, create quality and value, grow units/dollars, and introduce Yesway brands into Allsup’s stores and vice versa — helping to build a unified brand, explained Alan Adato, merchandising and procurement manager at Fort Worth-based Yesway.
“Private label is a very important part of our business, and it is complemented by food and rewards,” he said.
To get started, both retailers pointed to working with RangeMe, a platform that connects retailers directly to suppliers, as well as the Private Label Manufacturers Association (PLMA), the annual PLMA Private Label Trade Show, and vendor partners.
“Have fun with your private label,” Adato urged. “You took the time to create it; embrace it.”
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