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freshmen class of Senators is one of the largest in history, with eight Republicans and six Democrats.
EDITORIAL
Jeff Lenard V.P. Strategic Industry Initiatives (703) 518-4272 jlenard@convenience.org
Ben Nussbaum Publisher & Editor-in-Chief (703) 518-4248 bnussbaum@convenience.org
MEMBERS: Lisa Blalock BP North America Inc.; Tom Brennan, Casey’s; Andrew Clyde, Murphy USA; Terry Gallagher, Gasamat Oil Corp/ Smoker Friendly; Raymond Huff, HJB Convenience Corp. dba Russell’s
NACS SUPPLIER BOARD
SUPPLIER BOARD CHAIR: Vito Maurici, McLane Co. Inc.
CHAIR-ELECT: Bryan Morrow, Chobani & La Colombe
VICE CHAIRS: Kevin LeMoyne, The Coca-Cola Company; Mike Gilroy, Mars Wrigley; Jim Hughes, GALLO
MEMBERS: Tony Battaglia, Tropicana Brands; David Charles, Cash Depot; Brent Cotten, The Hershey Company; Jerry Cutler, InComm Payments; Jack Dickinson, Dover Corporation; Matt Domingo, Reynolds; Mark Falcone, Greenridge Naturals; Kevin Farley, Impact 21; Danielle Holloway, Altria Group Distribution Co.; Kevin Kraft, Tropicana Brands; Sarah Vilim,
Convenience; Mark Jordan, Refuel Operating Co.; Brian McCarthy, Blarney Castle Oil Co.; Natalie Morhous, RaceTrac Inc.; JP Patel, FASTIME; Robert Razowsky, Rmarts LLC; Stanley Reynolds, 7-Eleven Inc.; Kristin Seabrook, Pilot Travel Centers LLC; Travis Sheetz, Sheetz Inc.; Babir Sultan, Fav Trip; Doug Yawberry, Weigel’s Stores Inc., Scott Zietlow, Kwik Trip Inc.
PAST CHAIRS: Victor Paterno, president and CEO of Philippine Seven Corp.; Don Rhoads, president and CEO of The Convenience Group LLC.
SUPPLIER BOARD REPRESENTATIVES: Vito Maurici, McLane; Brian Morrow, Chobani & La Colombe
Keurig Dr Pepper; Jay Nelson, Excel Tire Gauge; Nick Paich, GSTV; Ramona Giderof, Diageo Beer; Ryan Calong, Pabst; Jordan Nicgor
GENERAL COUNSEL: Doug Kantor, NACS
STAFF LIAISON: Bob Hughes, NACS
RETAIL BOARD REPRESENTATIVES: Tom Brennan, Casey’s; Scott Hartman, Rutter’s; Kevin Smartt, TXB
PAST CHAIRS: David Charles, Cash Depot; Brent Cotton, The Hershey Company; Kevin Farley, Impact 21
NACS Magazine (ISSN 1939-4780) is published monthly by the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS), Alexandria, Virginia, USA.
Subscriptions are included in the dues paid by NACS member companies. Subscriptions are also available to qualified recipients. The publisher reserves the right to limit the number of free subscriptions and to set related qualifications criteria.
If you flip to the story “Putting the AI in Retail,” you’ll see this quote: “AI is like electricity. It’s all around us.”
That sentiment cuts right to the chase: AI is everywhere, and it’s only going to infiltrate more deeply into everyday life and everyday operations.
It also highlights why AI is a surprisingly difficult topic to write about. How do you write a story about something that’s invisible but can be applied to so many aspects of convenience? Lauren Shanesy rose to the occasion with an article that shares great insights from leading operators on opposite sides of the size scale. A key question is timing. Is now the right time to invest in a particular AI-based upgrade? Or is it six months from now? Or a few years?
A related article in this issue, “Hitting the Mark With Your Tech Investment,” explores some key tech areas that leading retailers are looking to boost in 2025 and beyond.
While NACS Magazine often interviews convenience store operators, we rarely interview former convenience store operators. We made an exception for Tony Wied, a first-term Member of Congress from Wisconsin. The industry can take pride in having a former operator on Capitol Hill.
Here’s some of what Congressman Wied had to say: “I think more people need to get involved in politics. Especially at the local level. You need to take care of your towns and get to know elected officials in the towns, counties and states that you operate in, and at the federal level as well. As convenience stores, you are in every community in this country.”
AI is everywhere … and convenience stores are too. I have no doubt we’ll be covering all the ways the two combine for many years.
I hope you enjoy this issue. Look for coverage of the NACS Leadership Forum in the May issue, and we’re already looking forward to our June issue, which covers the great NACS State of the Industry Summit. Learn more about the event at convenience.org/events/SOI.
Ben Nussbaum Editor-in-Chief
In It for the Long Haul at Kwik Shop
At 15 years old, Jay Luper started working at a Dillon’s grocery store (owned by Kroger) bagging groceries and cleaning and sorting bottle returns in the bottle room. Over the years he worked almost every job at the store, from cashier to customer service representative, before becoming a store manager at age 29.
“While I was a manager, I got to work on a number of special projects for our Kwik Shop side of the business. That’s how I got my exposure to convenience stores and I really liked what I saw,” he said. “I saw something that was really fast paced and a wild frontier of sorts, somewhere where I could make a difference. Convenience has a lot of room for opportunity.”
He soon became the manager of his area’s largest Kwik Shop, a 13,000-squarefoot store that was akin to a small grocery format. He’s now worked in the industry for 37 years and is a district manager at EG America, which purchased Kroger’s convenience portfolio in 2018. Luper oversees 15 Kwik Shop stores across Kansas.
Celebrating the people who make our industry great.
[One customer] said that coming into the store and talking to me was the only interaction they’d had with anyone all day. We all have a powerful opportunity to impact others’ lives in a positive way.”
He spoke with NACS about:
WHY HE’S MADE RETAIL A FOUR-DECADE CAREER
It’s a fast-paced environment. There is always something to do and you get to use your critical thinking and service skills to reach positive outcomes for your customers. I have always liked the daily challenge of delivering the best for our guests.
HIS FAVORITE THING ABOUT WORKING IN CONVENIENCE
It’s the lives you touch daily and the connections I’ve made with people along the way. Once when talking with a guest, they said that coming into the store and talking to me was the only interaction they’d had with anyone all day. We all have a powerful opportunity to impact others’ lives in a positive way. I also love helping to train and develop the next generation of talent. You hand down your knowledge and see those people become leaders. One of the most fulfilling parts of this job is building them up and seeing them become successful.
WHAT HE WOULD TELL SOMEONE CONSIDERING A JOB IN CONVENIENCE
It’s a challenging but rewarding environment. You have the opportunity to grow in the business and there’s always work to be done. The only limit is yourself. In this industry, there is opportunity for everyone, no matter who you are. If you want to put in the work and do the job, there are opportunities for you.
Jay Luper, district manager, Kwik Shop (EG America), is always there for his team—he once went 20 years without missing a day of work.
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NACS Foundation and Keurig Dr Pepper Partner
In 2025, the NACS Foundation Future Fund scholarship program will provide 11 scholarships of $3,000 each. Because of the support from Keurig Dr Pepper, NACS is able to provide five additional scholarships this year for a total of 16 scholarships that will be awarded to convenience store employees. These scholarships will help convenience store employees and the children of employees cover tuition costs for undergraduate or community college programs.
“This expansion of the Future Fund allows us to honor the hardworking individuals who power the convenience store industry and invest in their potential to lead, innovate and transform our sector,” said Kevin O’Connell, executive director of the NACS Foundation.
“Thanks to Keurig Dr Pepper’s partnership, we’re proud to offer a larger program that can make a greater impact
for employees, their families and the communities they serve.”
In addition to the financial support, scholarship recipients will be invited to attend the 2025 NACS Show in Chicago. The recipients will be honored at a special reception and have exclusive opportunities to network with industry leaders.
“Keurig Dr Pepper is pleased to partner with NACS in expanding scholarship opportunities within the convenience channel,” said Kevin Martello, vice president of foodservice solutions, convenience retail and industry relations at Keurig Dr Pepper.
“At KDP, we are committed to being an essential partner for both our retailers and the NACS Foundation. We are proud to support the Future Fund and contribute to creating greater support and opportunities for individuals across the industry.”
Applications are currently open and will close on June 13, 2025. This year, instead of writing an essay, applicants are asked to submit a video that shares their story—including their background, interests, experiences, talents and how the scholarship will help them reach their college and career goals.
Applicants are eligible if they work for a NACS retail member company or are the child of a member employee enrolled in Fall 2025 academic studies. You can find details on eligibility and application requirements at conveniencecares.org/Scholarship
UP FRONT NACS NEWS
Honor Your Hometown Heroes This 24/7 Day
Convenience retailers and suppliers are gearing up for the seventh annual 24/7 Day sponsored by the NACS Foundation.
The annual event helps spotlight the convenience industry’s important role
in supporting first responders and all the heroes who work around the clock, 24/7, while also raising funds for the American Red Cross.
Over 80 retailers and suppliers participated in 24/7 Day in 2024, representing
30,000 locations nationwide. The event not only thanked and recognized first responders and other local heroes with free items like a cup of coffee or fountain soda, but also showcased the convenience store industry’s deep community ties and dedication.
“The really meaningful thing we are seeing on 24/7 Day is we aren’t only recognizing first responders and doing something good for the community—the next level that we are unlocking is that it becomes an employee engagement and morale-building opportunity for retailers,” said Kevin O’Connell, executive director of the NACS Foundation.
High’s, located in Baltimore, Maryland, has been participating in NACS 24/7 Day since 2020.
Morganne Manouse, marketing strategist at High’s, said during a NACS webinar, “We thought a single day just wasn’t enough to represent some of these heroes. As we pray for first responders for events such as Hurricane Helene, Hurricane Milton and the California wildfires, we understand it’s equally important to emphasize the heroic actions of the heroes all around the community.”
In 2024, High’s implemented its “High’s Hometown Hero” campaign for the first time to further recognize local heroes. “It was a social media campaign that kicked off in July that allowed customers and High’s employees to nominate a High’s Hometown Hero from their store area,” said Michele Truelove, senior vice president of retail at High’s.
Learn how you can get involved in this important initiative at www.conveniencecares.org/24-7-day
UP FRONT NACS NEWS
NACS State of the Industry Report® Available for Purchase June 15 Did you miss out on this year’s NACS State of the Industry Summit, April 8-10, in Dallas? It’s not too late to purchase the NACS State of the Industry Report® of 2024 Data. It will be available June 15. Visit www.convenience.org/SOI to purchase your copy.
2024 Data Now Available in the Talent Insights Dashboard
NACS’ annual compensation study aggregates convenience industry-specific compensation, total rewards and retention data to help retailers build a competitive compensation strategy. The NACS State of the Industry Talent Insights Dashboard® provides
Calendar of Events
MAY
NACS Leadership for Success May 12-16 | Hershey Lodge Hershey, Pennsylvania
NACS Convenience Summit Europe
May 27-29 | Copenhagen Marriott Copenhagen, Denmark
JULY
NACS Financial Leadership Program at Wharton
July 13-18 | The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
the most current year’s human resource benchmarking data, highlighting the key categories of compensation, turnover, benefits and recruitment. Purchase your subscription to the Dashboard at convenience.org/TalentInsightsDashboard
NACS Marketing Leadership Program at Kellogg July 20-25 | Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University Evanston, Illinois
AUGUST
NACS Executive Leadership Program at Cornell August 03-07 | Dyson School, Cornell University Ithaca, New York
OCTOBER
NACS Show October 14-17 | McCormick Place Convention Center Chicago, Illinois
UP FRONT NACS NEWS
Member News
RETAILERS
Parkland Corporation announced that as part its executive succession plan, Marcel Teunissen, the company’s former chief financial officer, transitioned to the new role of president, North America, responsible for Canadian and U.S. operations.
“Parkland takes a thoughtful approach to senior executive development and progression,” said Bob Espey, president and chief executive officer. “Marcel has been Parkland’s chief financial officer since 2020. … I am delighted he will lead our Canadian and U.S. businesses and have confidence that, under his leadership they will contribute strongly to the company’s continued growth.”
Brad Monaco was named as interim chief financial officer for Parkland Corporation. He will report to Parkland’s president and chief executive officer and work closely with the company’s board of directors. Monaco has held progressively senior finance roles at Parkland including director, capital markets, and vice president finance for the company’s Canadian business segment.
Sheetz appointed Kristen Blum to its board of directors. Blum recently served as the senior vice president and chief information officer for PepsiCo’s Latin American division. She also served as chief information officer for Frito-Lay, a business unit within PepsiCo and held other senior leadership positions within the company.
“Kristen brings a proven track record of transformative leadership and deep food and beverage industry expertise. Her strategic vision, exceptional business acumen and innovative approach will be instrumental as we accelerate Sheetz’s growth and continue to define the future of convenience and retail,” said Joe Sheetz, former Sheetz CEO and current chairman of the Sheetz board of directors.
SUPPLIERS
Erin DaSilva joined Rovertown as its new customer success manager. DaSilva previously held key positions at Sunstop Stores, growing its mobile app and rewards program to more than 120,000 users across 81 stores in three states. At Rovertown, Dasilva will support smallto-midsize retailers.
PepsiCo Inc. appointed Christine Tammara as senior vice president and controller effective May 3, 2025, succeeding senior vice president and controller Marie Gallagher, who previously announced her intention to retire. Tammara will report to PepsiCo Chief Financial Officer Jamie Caulfield.
Tammara joined PepsiCo in 2007 and has served as senior vice president, controller, PepsiCo Beverages North America since June 2023, where she drove the sector’s control agenda, oversaw financial reporting and control execution and partnered with the business on accounting and transformation solutions.
Mars Inc. announced that Alastair Child , former vice president of global sustainability, Mars Snacking, has been named as the new chief sustainability officer, Mars Inc. Child will be responsible for the development of the overall Mars sustainability agenda, leading Mars on its journey to Net Zero, as part of the company’s broader Sustainable in a Generation Plan. For the last seven years, Child played a critical role in Mars Snacking, driving a strategy to embed sustainability across the enterprise.
Monica Novomisle was appointed executive vice president, chief people officer for Rich Products. Novomisle will lead Rich’s Associate Experience Network (AEN)—the company’s approach to people, “which focuses on delivering exceptional experiences to Rich’s associates, built around the moments that matter most to them.” In her role, she will oversee HR, communications and workplaces.
Kristen Blum
Erin DaSilva
Monica Novomisle
Alastair Child
- Snoop Dogg
UP FRONT NACS NEWS
New Members
NACS welcomes the following companies that joined the Association in January 2025. NACS membership is company-wide, so we encourage employees of member companies to create a username by visiting convenience.org/create-login. All members receive access to the NACS Online Membership directory and the latest industry news, information and resources. For more information about NACS membership, visit convenience.org/membership
Creole Fried Chicken Flowood, MS creolefried.com
SILVER
Vitamin Well A/Barebells Los Angeles, CA nocco.com
BRONZE Tropicana Brands Group Chicago, IL tropicana.com
CG Roxane LLC (Crystal Geyser) Olancha, CA crystalgeyserplease.com
RETAILERS
All American Truckers Paradise Gainesville, TX truckersparadise.com
Ambest Inc. Brentwood, TN am-best.com
Eagle Feather Trading Post Porterville, CA eaglefeathertradingposts.com
Forward Corporation Standish, MI forwardcorp.com
Speedy Stop Food Stores Victoria, TX
SUPPLIERS
Allen Industries Greensboro, NC allenindustries.com
Cardinal Safety Company Spring Lake, MI cardinalsafetyco.com
Cookie Man
Mount Kuring-Gai, New South Wales, Australia cookieman.com.au
Cyril’s Foods Company Fort Lauderdale, FL cyrils.com
Dippie Donuts/Cluster Goods Inc. Georgetown, MA dippiedonuts.com
Elevation Capital Cincinnati, OH elevation-capital-9121264.webflow.io
Facility Solutions Group Inc. dba FSG Smart Buildings Round Rock, TX fsgsmartbuildings.com
Fluirco Technologies LLC San Diego, CA fluirco.com
Guangdong Wireking Display Fixture Co. Ltd Guangdong, China wirekingdisplay.com
Lower Foods Inc. Richmond, UT llranch.com
Ly Brothers Corp. dba Sugar Bowl Bakery Hayward, CA sugarbowlbakery.com
Marketing Card Technology Downers Grove, IL mctechnology.com
McKinsey & Company Inc. Mexico Miguel Hidalgo, Distrito Federal, Mexico
Mechanix Wear LLC Valencia, CA
Penny Plate LLC Mount Laurel, NJ pennyplate.com
Ranch Fuel Pilot Point, TX ranchfuel.com
Rapid Merchandise Holdings City of Industry, CA rapidmh.com
Rhino Air Elkhart, IN rhinoair.co
Texawatt Inc. dba Texas Tea Fuels & Lubes Tahoe City, CA texastealubes.com
The Global Display Solution Beaverton, OR theglobaldisplaysolution.com
The Schwan Food Company dba Schwan’s Food Service Bloomington, MN schwansfoodservice.com
Twigz Pretzels Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Vanee Foods Company Oak Brook, IL vanee.com
MAJOR OIL
CHS Inc. (Cenex) Inver Grove Heights, MN cenex.com
Citgo Petroleum Corporation Houston, TX citgo.com
Valero Marketing & Supply San Antonio, TX valero.com
WARNING: Cigars are not a safe alternative to cigarettes.
TravelCenters of America Expands Anti-Trafficking Initiative
The
retailer is training employees on how they can help prevent human trafficking.
TravelCenters of America (TA), part of the BP portfolio, has started hosting anti-human trafficking briefings at select sites nationwide in collaboration with TAT (formerly Truckers Against Trafficking).
“TAT Junction Briefings are free, in-person events designed to train truck stop and travel center employees and facilitate communication and collaboration with law enforcement. Presenters will provide an overview of human trafficking, explain how truck stop and travel center employees may be encountering human trafficking and share red flag indicators and local examples,” TA said.
The briefings are held quarterly at TA locations located within 10 miles of a major interstate or highway junction, with two to three sessions per day to accommodate different shifts of workers. In addition to TA employees, other nearby truck stop and travel center employees are invited to participate.
“It’s important that we are providing every opportunity we can for our team to be trained to recognize human trafficking,” said Debi Boffa, CEO of TA. “I have personally witnessed the impact our team members can have as the eyes and ears of the highway. We look forward to building stronger relationships with the local law enforcement community and thank TAT for the opportunity to host these important meetings at our sites.”
TA has supported TAT for more than 10 years and donates a portion of funds raised in its annual TA Charity Golf Outing to TAT. In 2024, TA donated over $100,000. This past January, in recognition of National Human Trafficking Prevention Month, TA made a $10,000 donation to TAT.
TA also plans to “continue providing annual human trafficking training to all team members and display TAT posters in guest-facing areas, providing information on how to get help.”
CONVENIENCE CARES
In The Community
1 EG AMERICA DONATES TO TOYS FOR TOTS
EG America supported Toys for Tots and the U.S. Marine Corps through its annual holiday toy drive. Team members at its headquarters in Westborough, Massachusetts, brought in toys to donate to children in need for the holidays. “In addition, Novelty Inc., Starmaker, Global Consumer Products and Lynco Products, all of which provide toys, novelty items and accessories for our stores, also donated items,” EG America said.
2 CIRCLE K SUPPORTS WILDFIRE RELIEF
As the Los Angeles area worked to recover from devastating wildfires, Circle K supported the American Red Cross to help local communities. Circle K offered 40 cents off per gallon on fuel purchases on January 16 and donated a portion of the proceeds from the event to Red Cross relief efforts in California.
More than 240 Circle K locations across California, Oregon and Washington participated.
3 7-ELEVEN REVAMPS YOUTH EDUCATION PROGRAM
The 7-Eleven Cares Foundation, an arm of 7-Eleven Inc., launched its revamped Project A-Game
youth education and development program. The initiative is now anchored by a new collaboration with Boys & Girls Clubs of America, “aiming to empower youth across the country through hyperlocal, community-based engagement.”
As part of the program’s refresh, 7-Eleven invited its franchise owners to apply for a $1,000 matching grant from the 7-Eleven Cares Foundation to support their local Boys & Girls Club or another eligible youth education organization.
4 ALLTOWN FRESH SUPPORTS HEART HEALTH MONTH
In honor of February’s Heart Health Month, Alltown Fresh launched a two-month campaign to fight heart disease and benefit local children’s hospitals. Alltown Fresh locations in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut and New York offered a Breakfast Power Bowl, with a portion of sales going to a regional hospital in each state where Alltown Fresh operates.
“Heart Health Month is a meaningful opportunity to bring attention to the importance of cardiovascular health and extend our support to local hospitals making a difference in children’s lives,” said Laura Derba, Global Partners LP senior vice president of retail operations.
5 KENT KWIK RUNS ROUND-UP CHARITY CAMPAIGN
Kent Kwik brought back its Round Up for Charity campaign for the months of January and February. “When you visit any Kent Kwik Convenience Store, you’ll have the chance to round up your purchase to the nearest dollar—whether at the register or the pump. Every penny goes to an incredible cause: PBRC (Permian Basin Rehab Center),” Kent Kwik said.
Kent Kwik said the donations will help kids with disabilities and special needs with things from physical therapy to speech therapy and other essential services. Last year the retailer “donated a record-breaking $110,000 to PBRC.”
Fresh Faces: Introducing the Newest Senators of the 119th Congress
The freshmen class is one of the largest in history, with eight Republicans and six Democrats.
BY MARGARET MANNION
As the 119th Congress gets underway, a new class of freshmen senators has arrived on Capitol Hill, bringing diverse backgrounds, fresh perspectives and unique priorities to the upper chamber. From former governors and House members to military veterans and business leaders, these newly elected and appointed senators are poised to shape policy on a wide range of issues that impact the convenience industry, including payments, transportation energy, infrastructure, and labor and tax policy. Here’s a closer look at the newest members of the U.S. Senate and the roles they’ll play in the legislative landscape ahead.
Angela Alsobrooks has a background as an attorney and public servant in her home state of Maryland, serving as the youngest and first woman to be elected Prince George’s County State’s Attorney. She later was elected to be Prince George’s County Executive, focused on generating economic opportunity and job creation. Alsobrooks serves on three Senate Committees: Banking; Environment & Public Works (EPW); and Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions (HELP). These committees have jurisdiction over issues important to the convenience industry, such as credit card swipe fees, fuels, labor and healthcare.
ANGELA ALSOBROOKS (D-MD)
JIM BANKS (R-IN)
Jim Banks, a Navy veteran, served as the U.S. Representative for Indiana’s 3rd Congressional District from 2017-2025, and he was an Indiana state senator before that. While in the House of Representatives, Banks served on the House Armed Services Committee, the Committee on Education and the Workforce, the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs and the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party. In the 117th Congress, Banks served as Chairman of the Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative caucus in the House.
In the Senate, Banks serves on the Armed Services, Banking, Veterans’ Affairs and HELP Committees. NACS will work with Senator Banks on payments issues, alongside healthcare and labor issues.
LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER (D-DE)
Lisa Blunt Rochester began her political career as an aide to recently retired Senator Tom Carper, and later went on to serve in the cabinets of both Delaware Governors Carper and Ruth Ann Minner. Blunt Rochester then went on to serve four terms in the House of Representatives, making history as the first woman and first African American to represent the state of Delaware in both chambers of Congress.
While in the House, she served on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which oversees health care, the environment, commerce and trade, energy policy, manufacturing and consumer protection. In the Senate, Blunt Rochester serves on four Committees: Banking, Commerce, EPW and HELP.
JOHN CURTIS (R-UT)
John Curtis served as the U.S. Representative for Utah’s 3rd Congressional District from 20172025. Generally considered a moderate Republican, Curtis founded the Conservative Climate Caucus in 2021 with the purpose to educate House Republicans on climate policies and legislation consistent with conservative values. While in the House, Curtis helped advance legislation that would unleash U.S. clean fuels, ensure energy independence and reduce global emissions.
Curtis serves on the Senate Committees on Commerce, EPW, Foreign Relations and Small Business. Issues such as transportation, infrastructure, privacy, data security, gasoline prices and others are in the jurisdiction of his committee assignments and important to the convenience industry.
INSIDE WASHINGTON
RUBEN GALLEGO (D-AZ)
Ruben Gallego, the son of immigrant parents, was elected to the Arizona House of Representatives in 2010, and later was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2014. While in the House, he served on the both the Armed Services and Natural Resources Committees. Before his time in politics, Gallego served in the Marine Corps and did tours of duty in Iraq in the mid-2000s.
Gallego serves on four Committees while in the Senate: Banking, Energy & Natural Resources, Homeland Security and Veterans’ Affairs. Both the Banking and Energy & Natural Resources Committees have jurisdiction over issues that impact the convenience industry, including payments and fuels.
JIM JUSTICE (R-WV)
A lifelong West Virginian, Jim Justice joined his family’s business and established the Justice Family Farms, with over 50,000 acres of farmland across multiple states. He later inherited ownership of his father’s Bluestone Industries and Bluestone Coal Corporation. In 2009, he purchased the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, to prevent its bankruptcy. Later, Justice was elected as Governor of West Virginia, serving until 2025.
Justice serves on Senate Committees of importance to the convenience industry, including the Committees on Agriculture, Energy & Natural Resources and Small Business. These Committees have jurisdiction over issues such as SNAP and oil and gas policies.
ANDY KIM (D-NJ)
Andy Kim represented his home community, New Jersey’s 3rd Congressional District, in the House of Representatives for three terms until 2024. Before being elected to the House, Kim worked as a career public servant under both Democrats and Republicans, having served at USAID, the Pentagon, the State Department, the White House National Security Council and in Afghanistan as an advisor to Generals Petraeus and Allen.
In the Senate, Kim serves on four Committees: Banking, Commerce, HELP and Homeland Security. NACS will work with Senator Kim on issues such as payments, healthcare and labor.
DAVE MCCORMICK (R-PA)
Dave McCormick attended West Point and was deployed to the Middle East during the First Gulf War. Following his service in Iraq, McCormick went on to earn his Ph.D. in international relations from Princeton, and later became the CEO of a tech startup and an investment firm. He also served as Under Secretary of Treasury and as Deputy National Security Advisor during President Geoge W. Bush’s second term.
McCormick serves as a member of the Senate Committees on Banking, Energy & Natural Resources, and Foreign Relations. Issues of importance to the convenience industry that fall under these Committees’ jurisdiction include payments, oil and gas policy, and biofuels.
BERNIE MORENO (R-OH)
Bernie Moreno was born in Bogota, Colombia. He moved to the United States with his family at age five and became an American citizen at age 18. Moreno purchased his first car dealership in 2005 and grew that one dealership into one of the largest dealership groups in America, eventually employing over 1,000 Ohioans. In 2016, Moreno began focusing on blockchain technology and moved much of his volunteer time and investment dollars into the space.
Moreno serves on the Senate Committees on Banking, Commerce, Homeland Security and Budget. These committees have jurisdiction over issues such as transportation and highways; truck weights; and payments, including cryptocurrency.
ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA)
Adam Schiff began his career as a law clerk and later joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles as a federal prosecutor. After serving in the California state legislature, Schiff was elected to the House of Representatives in 2000, where he served on the House Committees on Judiciary, Foreign Affairs and Appropriations. Schiff is a longtime champion of the environment and clean energy, as well as investments in infrastructure.
Schiff serves on four committees in the Senate: Agriculture, EPW, Small Business and Judiciary. NACS will work with him on issues such as the Farm Bill, SNAP and transportation infrastructure.
INSIDE WASHINGTON
TIM SHEEHY (R-MT)
Tim Sheehy, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, completed several deployments
as a U.S. Navy SEAL Officer in Iraq, Afghanistan, South America and the Pacific region. In addition to founding an aerospace company based in Belgrade, Montana, he is also an active firefighting pilot, completing hundreds of firefighting missions across the American West.
Sheehy will be a member of the Senate Committees on Armed Services, Commerce, and Veterans’ Affairs.
ELISSA SLOTKIN (D-MI)
Elissa Slotkin, former CIA analyst and Department of Defense official, was elected to the House of Representatives for Michigan’s 7th Congressional District, serving for three terms. In the House, she advocated for legislation that would expand access to health care and bring supply chains and manufacturing back to Michigan.
In the Senate, Slotkin serves on the Committees on Agriculture, Armed Services, Homeland Security, and Veterans’ Affairs. NACS will work with her on the upcoming Farm Bill and on SNAP issues.
JON HUSTED (R-OH)
Jon Husted, former Lieutenant Governor of Ohio, was appointed by the Governor of Ohio to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of J.D. Vance to serve as the Vice President of the United States. Husted serves on the Committee on Environment & Public Works, which has jurisdiction over highways and transportation infrastructure.
ASHLEY MOODY (R-FL)
Ashley Moody is the former Attorney General for the state of Florida. She was appointed to the Senate by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to fill the vacancy caused by Marco Rubio’s resignation to become Secretary of State. Moody serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over antitrust issues.
NACSPAC LIST
NACSPAC was created in 1979 by NACS as the entity through which the association can legally contribute funds to political candidates supportive of our industry’s issues. For more information about NACSPAC and how political action committees (PACs) work, go to www. convenience.org/nacspac
NACSPAC donors who made contributions in February 2025 are:
Roger Audette Excel Tire Gauge LLC
Matt Beale W. Capra Consulting Group
Lisa Biggs W. Capra Consulting Group
Ned Bowman Florida Petroleum Marketers Association Inc.
Sajid Chaudhry NSR Petro Services LLC
Tim Cuneo iSee Store Innovations
Marc Della Torre InStore.ai
Kirk Dickerson Dickerson Petroleum Inc.
Paige Fickler-Cleveland Fickler Oil Company Inc.
Jim Forsyth FKG Oil Company
dba Moto Mart
Sid Gaitonde PDI Technologies
Terry Gallagher Gasamat Oil Corp./Smoker Friendly
Robert Gallo W. Capra Consulting Group
David Garcia Molson Coors Beverage Company
Paul Goldean
Pace-O-Matic
Robert Griffith
Golden Pantry Food Stores Inc.
Herb Hargraves
Victory Marketing LLC
Margaret Hardin
Mannion is the NACS director of government relations. She can be reached at mmannion@ convenience.org.
Jeffry Harrison Rovertown
Scott Hartman
Rutter’s Holdings Inc.
PIZZA THAT PAY$.
Partner with Hunt Brothers® Pizza and unlock your pizza profits of 50% or more. Our turnkey branded pizza program is designed specifically for c-stores, fits into your existing space, and operates with your existing labor to deliver maximum profitability.
INSIDE WASHINGTON
NACSPAC LIST
Jeffery Hassman PDI Technologies
Elizabeth Hoffer
Weigel’s Stores Inc.
Brandon Hofmann
The Parker Companies dba Parker’s Kitchen
Megan Huettenmueller GPM Investments LLC
Faheem Jamal Chestnut Market
Jen Johnson Verifone Inc.
Ruth Ann Lily GPM Investments LLC
Mike Lindberg CHS Inc. (Cenex)
Charles Melander Juice Head/ Streamline Group
Amber Moore Altria Group Distribution Company
Bryan Morrow Chobani & La Colombe
Patrick Mulcahy Juice Head/ Streamline Group
Morgan Neuhoff GSP
Gus Olympidis Family Express Corporation
Richard Oneslager Balmar Management Group
Anna Paridee RaceTrac Inc.
Matt Pascal Pace-O-Matic
Allen Preslar InComm Payments
Paul Rankin
United Refining Company
dba Country Fair/Kwik Fill
Carl Rick Kwik Trip Inc.
Jeff Rubin Upside
John Rudolfs
The Parker Companies
dba Parker’s Kitchen
Ron Rutherford
Apter Industries Inc.
Jose Santiago Liquid Barcodes Inc.
Ryan Sheetz Sheetz Inc.
Nick Stanley Johnson Junction Inc.
Dan Sutterman Upside
Daniel Trotzer GSTV
Marvin Vines The Coca-Cola Company
Nick Viola
Titan Cloud Software
Brandon Warshaw InStore.ai
Don Wasek Buc-ee’s Ltd.
Bill Weigel Weigel’s Stores Inc.
Amber Williams Cardlytics
Michael Winton Republic Amusements
The
Name of company: Idleyld Trading Post
Date founded: 1920s
# of stores: 1 Website: itp138.com
Local Focus Revives Oregon Trading Post
Buying Idleyld Trading Post gave the owner a new career while returning to his roots.
BY SARAH HAMAKER
As a child visiting his grandparents, Eric Sohn loved to stop at the Idleyld Trading Post, Deli & Liquor Store in Idleyld Park, Oregon. “I have a vivid memory of staring at the tackle wall for lures to go fishing,” he said. “I thought it was such a cool place that felt like part of the community.”
Fast forward several decades to 2017, when Sohn, who was living in California, working in finance and looking to transition his career, saw the store was for sale. “I bought it because I was looking for something different to do. With family in the area—and visiting all those summers as a child—I figured I knew the area well enough to make it work,” he said.
Idleyld Trading Post, Deli & Liquor Store is located next to the Umpqua National Forest and has become a traditional stopping point for those visiting the forest.
IDEAS 2 GO
TRANSITIONING A LOCAL LANDMARK
The Idleyld Trading Post has been part of the local landscape for more than a century. The first store was established in 1920. Two fires over the years destroyed the original building, which was mostly rebuilt in the 1950s and gradually morphed into the store as it is today.
“Historically, this was a community hub, a gathering spot for locals and visitors,” Sohn said. “The previous owners neglected the building and customers, so I knew it needed some TLC to bring it back to its former glory.”
Beyond the physical repairs needed, the store’s vibe also lacked its prior welcoming atmosphere. “A lot of the locals had stopped coming in,” he said.
The store had once been known for its fresh sandwiches, so restoring the sandwich program became a top priority for Sohn when he took over eight years ago. “One of the main things on my agenda was to return to the quality sandwiches of the past,” he said. To that end, he introduced build-your-own and premade sandwiches called Highway 138 Specials.
The store already offered hot breakfast, but he also added an oven to expand the hot food selection. New menu items included hot lunches, such as calzones, tri-tip and chicken burritos, and tri-tip chili, as well as large breakfast burritos, egg sandwiches, and biscuits and house-made sausage gravy.
By far his most popular item is the tritrip and cheese burritos with separate sauces. “We sell about a thousand of them each week,” he said.
He also changed the supplier to an Oregon roaster. “We don’t do specialty drinks but do have several blends available starting at 5 a.m. for the early morning crowd of loggers, campers and hunters,” he said.
BRIGHT IDEAS
The best advice Eric Sohn, owner of the Idleyld Trading Post, Deli & Liquor Store in Idleyld Park, Oregon, has for other retailers is to make sure the store has a welcoming and friendly environment that leaves people wanting to come back. “We have a unique location on the edge of a national forest, which brings in those visiting the forest for camping, hiking and fishing,” he said. “But that also means it’s very seasonal with slower business in the winter, so we make sure our employees are good ambassadors for our brand to keep the locals and tourists happy with their choice to stop at our store.”
On the alcohol side, he expanded the beer selection to include microbrews and Oregon brews, which are stocked alongside domestic and craft beers and ciders. He also added local wines from nearby wineries and got a state liquor license.
Since the fishing gear was what brought him into the store as a kid, Sohn only added to the selection. “We’re near the North Umpqua River,
which is known for fly fishing, so we have a section that’s fly only, plus bait and tackle,” he said.
“Overall, we try to source our goods as close to our store as possible,” he said. “If there’s an item that’s locally produced, we’ll get that.” For example, Idleyld Trading Post stocks products by local artists, such as jewelry, walking sticks and handmade cards.
A FRIENDLY PLACE
Sohn is most proud of bringing back a friendly atmosphere to the general store. “It was a big turnaround for us to ensure our employees were welcoming to locals and tourists,” he said. “My manager and I paid close attention to potential workers through the interview process to make sure the staff hired had customer service skills and a friendly demeanor.”
He also made sure each shift was staffed with enough workers to not overstretch his employees. “That only leads to cranky staff, and we also pay a little bit more than the prior owners did, plus we offer benefits like employee meals and discounts.” Those changes increased the satisfaction of the employees. While the store has its share of turnover, a core crew of employees has been with him for “a long time,” he said.
“We’ve had great feedback from the local community and vendors too,” Sohn said. “We’re becoming the traditional stopping point for those heading to the Umpqua National Forest, which thrills me.”
Sarah Hamaker is a freelance writer, NACS Magazine contributor and award-winning romantic suspense author based in Fairfax, Virginia. Visit her online at sarahhamakerfiction.com.
Ideas 2 Go showcases how retailers today are operating the convenience store of tomorrow. To see videos of the c-stores we profiled in 2024 and earlier, go to www.convenience.org/Ideas2Go.
Store owner Eric Sohn (left) and store manager Ellen Church (right)
• Decision-makers doing business
The Conexxus Annual Conference brought together industry leaders to discuss everything from data security to digital coupons.
HITTING THE MARK
BY LAUREN SHANESY
The customer is the core of the convenience business. With so much data available about who the shopper is, retailers that capture the data, analyze it to create useful information and operationalize the insights gained from the information can drive sales, loyalty and profit—and, critically, differentiate themselves from competition by creating a better customer experience.
That goes for retailers of all sizes and is a tried-and-true retailing need: Before you can serve your customer, you have to understand your customer.
“How are you using customer insights as a sales and business driver? How are you leveraging data analytics to anticipate and meet your customers’ needs? What are you doing with personalization?” asked Ed Dzadovsky, global CTO & EVP at Alimentation CoucheTard, during the keynote address at this year’s Conexxus Annual Conference, which took place in Tucson, Arizona.
“Focus on doing the basics really well. When you can’t find the answer for something through technology, go back to the frontlines and start with the customer experience. The answers are all there,” said Dzadovsky. “We aren’t just building tech for the sake of building tech. We need to make our customers’ and our employees’ lives just a little bit easier every day.”
Varish Goyal, CEO, Vintners Distributors, Au Energy and Loop Neighborhood Markets, said during his welcome remarks that one of his top priorities for 2025 is enhancing the customer experience.
ONE OF THE GREAT THINGS ABOUT 8112S IS THAT YOU CAN KNOW WHO ACCEPTED YOUR COUPON, WHEN THEY ACCEPTED IT AND WHERE THEY ACTUALLY REDEEMED IT.”
“We all sell the same stuff at the end of the day. So how do you differentiate? The answer is in the customer experience,” he said. “We are looking at in-store technology for that, whether it’s SCO, mobile payments or looking at ways to change the layouts of our stores to make them more interesting and exciting.”
Loop Neighborhood Markets is also investigating ways to mitigate, or at least address, instances of lost customers due to a bad experience.
“Sometimes that happens and you don’t know about it. We want to figure out ways of NPS scoring or surveying to capture that information, so that our teams can adjust and improve in order to be better prepared for the next time that particular consumer comes to our store,” he said.
BULLSEYE ON BOOSTING CUSTOMER RETENTION
A top priority for retailers is improving customer loyalty and retention.
Loop’s loyalty platform currently has 1 million active users, and 60% of them shop [at least] once per month. The average transaction of a loyalty customer is $11.03, while that number is just $4.83 for a non-loyalty customer.
Goyal said 8112 coupons will have a huge role to play in improving loyalty offerings and increasing both trips and basket size. “We need to try to get more personal with how we communicate with our consumer. We can use some of the latest technology, like 8112 coupons, to really see what promotions resonate with our consumer and drive more specific actions that will benefit the business.”
Doug New, chief information officer at Nouria Energy Corp., underscored the value of 8112 coupons when presenting the Conexxus Road Map at the 2024 NACS Show in October.
“One of the great things about 8112s is that you can know who accepted your coupon, when they accepted it and where they actually redeemed it. So you’re trying to build deeper consumer insights for your customers, and then you can more precisely target ads to them,” said New. “Your data will show
DEVALUING DATA IS AN EFFICIENT ALTERNATIVE.”
one customer likes fried chicken, so you can send him a coupon or deal when you know he’s in the area or during a time he often comes to your store.”
8112 coupons are just one targeted way to engage customers within digital media ecosystems and retail media networks. These broadly allow retailers to offer customized promotions and deals and target the consumer with engaging and meaningful offers.
TARGETING CONSUMERS WITH RETAIL MEDIA NETWORKS
There is $40 billion of retail media network ad spend in the U.S. market available to capture over the next three years, said Art Sebastian, founder & CEO of consulting firm NexChapter during a working group meeting.
“How much of that $40 billion do you want to capture? Whether you have five sites, 75 sites or 140 sites, there’s a sliver of that $40 billion pie that is available to you,” he said.
With 40 million daily transactions at the pump and 160 million transactions per day total, more than any other retail category, c-stores are “uniquely positioned to capture our share of that $40 billion. When a customer is at the pump for 90 seconds to two minutes, what are we doing? Are we letting them text and surf social media? Or are we interacting with them, engaging them and influencing a new behavior? We have a tremendous opportunity here and are entering an age of retail media,” he said.
With a retail media network, “Your end goal is to collect enough information so you can further refine and target promotions for your customers that you want to engage and bring into your store,” said New.
You can present personalized offers and promotions to consumers in myriad ways and through a variety of channels, from direct email and text campaigns to TV
advertising and social media, to videos and display screens on the forecourt, but the most effective strategy will be to target the messaging to a consumer’s precise personal preferences and buying behavior.
For this, you need to collect data—preferably first-party data. This includes data from loyalty accounts, transactions, website and mobile app interactions, message open rates and call center interactions. With that, you can present the most meaningful offer to a consumer at the right time to increase the chance of a purchase.
Conexxus is a nonprofit organization dedicated to driving innovation in technology and operational excellence in the convenience and fuel industry. It offers a broad depth of standards and specifications for the industry that improve profitability by reducing the cost of IT ownership as well as improving competitiveness. Through its work, it seeks to help convenience and fuel retailers solve unique technology challenges, implement technology standards and drive profitability, while providing them with the tools needed to adapt to changing technology requirements.
“There is a lot of technology required to get these systems in place, but a lot of retailers already have many of the ingredients, like loyalty data and marketing funnels. There’s no reason not to get started now and begin road mapping a retail media strategy,” said Sebastian.
IN THE LOOP
In addition
to improving shopper loyalty and retention and enhancing the customer experience, Varish Goyal, CEO, Vintners Distributors, Au Energy and Loop Neighborhood Markets, is focusing on three other key areas of growth in the year ahead. At the Conexxus Annual Conference, he outlined his areas of focus, how he’s tackling them and the technology he needs to do so.
Inventory management: “We learned that just because we have the product in inventory doesn’t mean it’s on the shelf. So how do you ensure that planograms are adhered to and that the product is actually where it needs to be? We are looking at how we want to improve our operations in that regard,” Goyal said.
Operational efficiency: Loop is located in California, where the state minimum wage is $16.50. With 14,000 employees, going over even a small amount in its labor budget can squeeze the company’s financials. “We are looking at how to optimize labor. How do we have employees staffed at the right times, and properly staffed for peak times?” he said. “We’re looking at ways of automating certain things like checkout, maintenance and restocking. Automating some of these processes will allow our teams to focus on selling the product without a large amount of labor hours.”
Theft reduction: This boils down to increasing employee safety at the end of the day, Goyal said. “Whether that’s with smart surveillance, different types of anti-theft technologies or better training materials, these are the things that we’re looking for to help ensure our employees are safe and have a good environment for them to be working in every day.”
SECURITY AND PRIVACY
Collecting consumer information also requires keeping a close eye on data security and privacy.
Protecting PII
There is an average of over 2,200 cyberattacks every day, and the average cost of a data breach in the U.S. is $9.6 million, according to data presented by Sean Gately, VP of business bevelopment at Bluefin. In 2024, customer PII (personally identifiable information) was included in 46% of breaches.
“PII data is the most common, and most expensive, type of record compromised,” Gately said during his presentation. “If your organization is not in the right spot to protect your data, you will have a high level of risk and it will cost you.”
Beyond the monetary burden of a data breach and the high cost to remedy one, there is also damage to your brand’s reputation. “Companies that have experienced a data breach underperformed the market by more than 15% three years later,” Gately said.
“Defending” your data is not enough, said Gately. “This typically requires a substantial investment in time, money and effort to achieve and maintain a protective barrier around data systems. It is challenging to maintain defenses in an ever-changing threat landscape that requires stronger, higher and more expensive walls to keep threat actors out.”
Instead, Gately says to devalue the data, and tokenization is a critical path to doing so.
“Devaluing data is an efficient alternative. Using PCI-validated P2PE and vaultless tokenization to devalue sensitive data through encryption renders it useless to hackers if exposed,” he explained. “An organization can then survive by mitigating the impact of a breach, protecting its brand and customers.”
Gately said that vaultless tokenization:
• Enhances security by not storing data in a central location
• Reduces latency, allowing for quicker processing since tokens can be generated and used without the need to query a central storage location
WE WANT TO HAVE DEVICES FOR EACH EMPLOYEE AS THEY’RE DOING THEIR TASKS FOR THEIR DAY, INSTEAD OF HAVING CENTRAL DEVICES TO GO BACK TO LIKE A COMPUTER OR A TERMINAL.”
The 52 new requirements focus on:
• Web page protection
• Client-side browser protection
• Scripts and script protection
• Structuring your vulnerability and patching SLAs to meet both your needs and compliance
All retailers are required to be compliant to collect debit and credit cards for payment, or risk hefty fines from vendors.
AIMING TO ENHANCE EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE
Retailers are also focused on using technology to make employees’ jobs easier and help them be more effective at work.
Chad Kobayashi, senior director of retail technology at Maverik, said that a main goal for Maverik is to implement new technologies that enhance the employee experience.
• Lowers costs associated with maintaining a secure vault
• Improves compliance with regulations such as NACHA, GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA and PCI DSS
• Is easier and more seamless to integrate with existing systems
PCI Compliance
New requirements for PCI DSS 4.0.1, which protect payment card data for purchases, took effect at the end of March with an emphasis on target risk analysis (TRAs).
“You no longer have to do a full enterprise risk assessment for PCI, but you are required to do a risk assessment for each of the 10 controls that are involved with the targeted risk analysis,” said Jason Schroeder, director at K3DES LLC. “Of the 52 new requirements, some of them are prescribed (as a lot of the DSS requirements are), but some of them are also variable. You get to decide how you’re meeting them, the amount of time you’re taking to meet them and the frequency with which you’re meeting them.”
The sheer amount of devices and technologies needed for the company’s 850 stores in over 20 states is vast, said Kobayashi, and it’s a challenge to manage all the different devices, which include POS, SCO, kitchen production terminals, ordering kiosks, iPads and other hardware.
Going forward, Maverik wants to move to a model where employees have mobile devices with them, which will reduce the need for traditional, stationary computers.
“We want to have devices for each employee as they’re doing their tasks for their day, instead of having central devices to go back to like a computer or a terminal. They need to have something with them as they’re working because that’s how people do things today,” he said.
The ongoing transition to mobile devices has been positively received, noted Kobayashi, especially among those who relied on desktop computers.
Lauren Shanesy is a writer and editor at NACS and has worked in business journalism for a decade. She can be reached at lshanesy@ convenience.org.
Easy . Need. Something.
BY JEFF LENARD AND ADAM ROSENBLATT
Convenience retailing is unlike any other channel, because it is not defined by the products stocked or served but by a concept: Convenience. And because that concept is defined by customers, it’s always evolving.
So, what is convenience? Historically, it has been a mix of 24/7 operations, an accessible location, one-stop shopping and a fast experience. While all those elements still hold true today, there’s a one-word attribute that consumers today prize more than anything else: Easy.
EASY DOES IT
“Easy” is part of some c-store names (E-Z Mart and Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppes come to mind), but the idea might be underused in our industry today, even though it bests encapsulate what consumers really crave. Of course, customers want something quick and they want it now, wherever they are and at whatever time, but most of all, they want it all to be easy.
In our most recent consumer survey, we asked respondents to describe the words “convenience” and “convenient.” In both cases, the word “easy” dominated. The second-most common word, “something,” was often attached to “easy,” as in the longer statement “something easy.”
About the Survey
NACS has conducted national consumer sentiment surveys since 2007 to learn about specific areas of importance to convenience retailers. This latest survey, with a focus on convenience and convenience retailing jobs, was conducted by national public opinion research firm Bold Decision (bold-decision. com); a total of 606 U.S. adults were surveyed from February 3-6, 2025. The margin for error for the study is +/- 3.98 at the 95% confidence level.
Consumers clearly define convenience (and convenient) as easy. But virtually all retail channels try to sell this idea of ease and convenience. After all, who would ever want to be thought of as an “inconvenience store”? Everyone celebrates convenience—even if they aren’t known for it.
WHAT IS A CONVENIENCE STORE?
So, if all retail stores aspire to be convenient stores, is there a difference between how convenient stores and convenience stores are defined by consumers?
NACS’ official definition of a c-store is simple: “A convenience store is a retail business with primary emphasis placed on providing the public a convenient location to quickly purchase from a wide array of consumable products (predominantly food or food and motor fuels) and services.”
That definition nicely fits the 152,000-plus convenience stores in the United States, but it also potentially includes many other different channels. Are drug stores, dollar stores or other channels considered convenience stores—regardless of official channel descriptions? To many consumers, the answer is “yes.”
Do you consider the following type of retail business a “convenience store”?
Customers are aligned in that convenience means “easy,” but there is clearly confusion over what exactly “convenience store” means. Most consumers think that almost all of our competing channels also can fit the mold of a convenience store.
We’ve established that consumers want something easy, and they have very broad definitions of where they might find that, so let’s dive deeper into to their wants and needs as they relate to store attributes and products.
NOT FEELING GREAT, BUT HOPEFUL
Convenience stores sell immediate consumption, and consumers’ concerns about their finances or the overall economy can dictate whether or not they grab that item to sate their hunger or thirst.
Unfortunately, they are not feeling great about their finances compared to how they felt a year ago.
How would you describe:
My household’s finances (compared to a year ago)
The local economy (compared to a year ago)
Concerns about finances echo findings from our December 2024 consumer survey, when 61% of consumers said that they worried about their finances and 55% were pessimistic about the economy. (See “The State of Eating” from the February 2025 issue of NACS Magazine.)
But there is hope that consumer perceptions will turn around: Most consumers think things are getting better in the area where they live.
In the area where I live, things are:
Headed in the right direction
Headed down the wrong track
WHAT DO CONVENIENCE STORES OFFER?
How closely to you associate these attributes with a “convenience store”? Consumers are pretty aligned on what convenience stores offer: Snacks and drinks from a smallformat store that has extended hours—and quick service.
However, there are some interesting variances. Consumers said that restrooms are more applicable than fueling (60% vs. 55%), which suggests that promoting the availability of restrooms could entice new consumers to your stores.
Meanwhile, foodservice, which has seen remarkable growth in our channel over the past two decades, is not necessarily seen as a core offer for everyone every time: “Sells freshly prepared foods” was considered “very relevant” by 31% of consumers, on par with “sells basic electronics like chargers” (32%). Promoting foodservice could provide a differentiating factor for consumers seeking convenience, since other similar channels far less likely to offer prepared food.
SOLVE THEIR NEEDS, APPEAL TO VALUE
Consumers overwhelmingly said that they have positive views of convenience stores. By a nearly 15:1 margin, consumers are more likely to say that they have a positive view towards convenience stores than a negative view. Three in four consumers (74%) said they have a positive view, and for those who have positive perceptions, what word do they closely associate with convenience stores? Of course, the word “easy” was a popular response—but another word popped even more: “need.”
In your own words, why do you have a positive view towards convenience stores? (Asked to the 74% who have a positive view.)
Store
Need Quick
Convenient
For the 5% of people who have negative views of convenience stores, their perceptions are tied to higher prices more than anything else. Negative perceptions related to safety, cleanliness or the workforce were far less on the minds of these consumers.
In your own words, why do you have a negative view towards convenience stores? (Asked to the 5% who have a negative view.)
THEY LIKE US!
There is some great news related to favorability rating: Consumers overwhelmingly like convenience stores and the shopping experience associated with them.
I enjoy shopping at convenience stores
Shopping at convenience stores is a chore
Young adults, those ages 18-34, are most likely to enjoy shopping at convenience stores (86%). By contrast, barely half (48%) of consumers 65 or older say they enjoy shopping at convenience stores. Not surprisingly, rural consumers (who are often less likely to have a c-store nearby) are also less likely to enjoy shopping at one (66% enjoy it and 21% feel it is a chore).
Here’s more great news: Perceptions of convenience stores are incredibly positive.
Positive views of convenience stores
Negative views of convenience stores
Younger consumers are most likely to have positive views of c-stores; both the age groups 18-34 and 35-50 have 79% positive views (and only 4% negative). Meanwhile those age 65 or older, while not nearly as thrilled with c-stores as younger consumers, still have a positive opinion of them by a more than 4:1 margin (54% positive vs 13% negative).
PROXIMITY IS IMPORTANT
Consumers said that they have a favorite store in their community. Which one and why? We asked consumers to give the name of their favorite convenience stores. Not surprisingly, some very well-known c-stores were cited. But not everyone named a c-store brand. Of the top 18 companies cited, three are not c-stores by the classic definition. Dollar General was named as the favorite convenience store by 4% of consumers and 1% cited Family Dollar; another 2% cited Walmart.
Do you prefer a particular store in your community?
Yes
No
Why do consumers have a favorite store? It’s because of another key word: “Close.” Proximity was the top reason cited, and that may explain why the non-convenience store names were cited. In many towns, dollar stores might be the closest viable option for shoppers, along with a big-box store like Walmart that may be in a neighboring town.
STARK DIFFERENCES BETWEEN AGES 18-34 AND 35-50
Generally, our consumer surveys reveal significant differences between younger adults ages 18-34 and those over age 65, which is to be expected based on their experience related to c-stores and their lifestyles. However, we seldom see equally large swings between the two youngest age cohorts.
Overall, those ages 35-50 are much more likely to define a c-store based on traditional store offers like extended hours and products like gasoline or tobacco. Meanwhile, those ages 18-34 are much more likely to define c-stores around products that virtually every channel offers—like toilet paper.
There were several areas in which those differences were particularly pronounced.
How closely to you associate these attributes with a “convenience store”?
Why do you prefer a particular store?
Close Need Convenient
Good
Everything Store
Why the difference in perceptions? It’s because traditional channel definitions might not apply to younger consumers— especially those who have grown up in a world that’s always been online and convenient. These younger consumers might define many other channels as “convenience stores” because they often use these channels for their convenience needs.
Do you consider the following type of retail business a “convenience store”? “Yes” for ages 18-34
Years of polling has shown us that younger consumers tend to love convenience stores the most. These latest results show us that they their love is less directed at our channel and more around any similar channel—regardless of the definition. To attract those younger customers, it will continue to be important to define how you best fit into their lifestyles and can make their lives easy—especially since you are competing in a retail environment that includes easy order and delivery options.
A THOUGHT FOR YOUR PENNIES
Days before we launched this survey, Adam told me that I was trending: Headlines blared that the Trump administration’s government efficiency program was considering a new target: the penny. And to my surprise, the experts cited on CNN were Elon Musk and me.
While Musk’s quote focused on the cost to produce the penny (more than three cents for each coin), a CNN reporter dug up an old quote from me that focused on the possible speed of service benefits to removing the penny: “If we save every one of our (52 million cash-paying) customers two seconds … that’s 1,203 days. And that doesn’t factor in time compounding—saving two seconds for the other people waiting in line before they get to pay. That’s some serious productivity.”
Knowing the penny was already in the news, we decided to use this survey to examine the idea closer. Do customers care about eliminating the penny? And what arguments about this idea are actually compelling? This exercise provides a spotlight on how NACS often uses polling and message testing to determine what’s important to consumers and what messages connect with them. And the results were also timely. Two days after polling was concluded, President Trump announced that he wanted to get rid of the penny, and we immediately shared topline data with reporters and in NACS Daily.
In constructing the survey, we started with the basic question about eliminating the penny. Roughly one in three consumers (36%) said they favor the idea, with only 15% strongly in favor.
Then we presented and tested various arguments to eliminate the penny. Musk’s reasoning resonated more than mine.
How compelling do you find these messages to support eliminating the penny?
least
The cost to produce a penny is more than three cents
often wind up unused and stored around
Then we reasked about abolishing the penny given what they read. Support jumped to 50% in favor of eliminating the penny, with 23% strongly in favor.
Finally, we explained how payments might work without the penny: Cash transactions rounded up or down to the nearest nickel. Would distrust creep in and reduce favorability? Quite the opposite—support to kill the penny increased further: 54% in favor and 25% strongly in favor.
—Jeff Lenard
I NEED SOMETHING EASY AND CLOSE
Convenience is certainly evolving and is no longer the exclusive domain of convenience stores. The results from this new survey show that consumers are increasingly not defining their shopping experiences by what channels offer, but by how a store meets their specific needs. All brick-and-mortar retailers aim to be convenient—and that ever-present convenience offer is changing how younger consumers are defining retail channels. (See “Stark Differences Between Ages 18-34 and 35-50” on pages 52-53.)
Changing consumer perceptions may be a threat if c-stores aren’t the first—or even the second or third option—for customers looking for convenience. But there is opportunity for those who focus less on convenience by traditional definitions and more on the customer experience—especially if it’s easy.
Jeff Lenard is NACS vice president of media & strategic initiatives. Growing up, his favorite store was the neighborhood E-Z Shop, which he thought was a great name decades before this poll confirmed it. He can be reached at jlenard@convenience.org.
Adam Rosenblatt is the founding partner of Bold Decision and has been leading NACS consumer surveys since 2009. He can be reached at adam@bolddecision.com.
WITH POINT OF SALE
BY LAUREN SHANESY
ast summer, cybersecurity company CrowdStrike’s infamous IT outage disrupted businesses across the globe.
Circle K lost payment capabilities in its stores for 12 hours, said Ed Dzadovsky, global CTO & EVP, Alimentation CoucheTard, while speaking at the 2025 Conexxus Annual Conference in January. “We lost millions and millions of dollars that day. And that’s just what we know we lost in that time. Who knows what happened because of the number of customers that we didn’t get to come back again,” he said.
A global IT outage is an extreme crisis scenario, but it highlights the most critical component of retail—the ability to transact.
“The point of sale is the core technology that runs the store. If the point of sale isn’t operating, that business is not generating income,” said James Hervey, executive vice president, head of petro and convenience at Verifone.
When evaluating a POS system, “understand what the next 10 years of your business is going to look like and optimize for that,” said Jack Hogan, SVP of sales and partnerships at Mashgin. “On a foundational level, does your system let you add on new features, new innovations and new products? What will be coming in the next 10 years to your sites that will enhance your customer experience, and how will your point of sale allow you to head in that direction most effectively?”
From automated and more seamless checkout experiences to mobile-friendly systems to how POS systems are built for longevity, here’s what a handful of POS vendors say retailers should focus on.
A Point of Sale Should …
… give you a picture of your whole business. Think of a POS as the central part of the store that everything else connects to. When integrated, it’s the hub where operators can get an overview of their entire business and operating costs, which is especially important in a business where every cent counts, said Safi Modi, head of growth at Modisoft. “Let’s say you’re a single-store owner and you want to know what your operational costs are—how much am I paying for my products? How much am I selling them for? What is my revenue? Is my pricing correct? Am I alerted if it’s not? What is my payroll?” he said. “Plus, everything should be logged in your pricebook so you never have to manually ring up items, which also helps reduce error and employee theft. Having a POS allows operators to see the whole business, and if you don’t have a centralized POS system, you could be bleeding money that you don’t even have a way of tracking.”
… support a variety of checkout experiences.
“One thing that customers generally care about in c-stores is how fast they can get in and out, so giving customers a variety of ways to check out and options that meet their needs is the right approach,” said Hervey.
“We are definitely seeing an increase in demand for autonomous checkouts or even self-serve kiosks or machines, similar to what’s been in airports for the last few years. Self-checkout isn’t new, but many consumers now expect it as an option,” said Max Gorlov, team lead of technical design team at Petrosoft.
Muskegon, Michigan-based Wesco announced it would add Mashgin computer vision technology self-checkout machines to 20 of its locations.
In February, Parker’s Kitchen added NCR Voyix self-checkout technology at 62 sites, with plans to expand to more locations in the coming years, citing the faster checkout times and optimized staffing the machines provide. Additionally, Wesco announced it would add Mashgin computer vision technology self-checkout machines to 20 of its locations.
According to Mashgin, a manufacturer of computer-vision-based self-checkout technology, younger generations want self-checkout options—more than 60% of Gen Z consumers prefer it over traditional checkout. “One thing we have moved our customers toward is an augmented self-checkout model, where a cashier can oversee the Mashgin terminals— especially considering how many c-store transactions require age verification—and also float over to the traditional POS,” said Hogan. “It helps our customers leverage labor more efficiently. If you only have two employees staffed, they won’t both be stuck behind the register and can instead focus on other tasks in the store that make for a better customer experience.”
… be flexible and easy to integrate.
Successfully incorporating different checkout options hinges on a POS system’s ability to integrate with the equipment. “If there’s not
A POS’ uptime is a critical component of keeping the store running, but it’s also not realistic to say a system will never encounter problems, meaning good training and support from vendors will help retailers better tackle any snags.
a consistent method in which that happens, then the machine is hanging off on the side as a separate, completely unintegrated system,” said Hervey. “An important thing we can do as an industry and as providers is make it easier to attach new systems and get them up and running quickly, so that trying something new [like self-checkout] doesn’t take a huge integration effort and can fit well into the store’s ecosystem. It would make the convenience industry more competitive from a consumer experience standpoint with other retail sectors.”
Verifone’s POS “places a series of APIs in front of the transaction engine,” which allows third-party checkout hardware to connect to and use its point of sale, described Hervey. “Taking a central transaction engine and then wrapping APIs around it gives us more flexibility to partner with third parties to create cool experiences for consumers. That’s one way to really improve the customer experience and allows retailers to try new things more easily without having to wait for your primary point-of-sale vendor to build those themselves,” he continued.
Bells and whistles aside, Verifone’s James Hervey said its most important for retailers to choose POS systems built for longevity to support them for the long haul.
That plug-and-play nature of a POS technology helps define its ease of use for operators, said Josh Raha, VP, product management for PDI POS. “The point of sale is the nerve center of a retail site, and there are so many elements that hook into it,” said Raha. “As technology evolves and there are more integrations, your system has to be flexible. You want the ability to reconfigure a point of sale for a different format. If you can have a single tech stack that you can reskin as a self-checkout, a foodservice kiosk or an ordering tablet, or whatever type of format you need on a busy day, instead of having to do a software code change or a change to the underlying engineering, then that’s an advantage,” he continued.
… be mobile friendly.
Whether you have one store or 1,000 stores, mobile and smartphone access to your point of sale is a key feature retailers need, according to POS suppliers.
“You need to have some form of mobile or remote capability so that managers, the sales team or really anyone in the store can access the software without having to be in front of the device or getting on a computer,” said Petrosoft’s Gorlov.
The capability allows retailers to update something quickly without being in the store, noted Modi. “Say a manager is driving around and their employee contacts them to say the price of something is incorrect—they’re able to make the adjustment immediately. Or they want to schedule a pricing update overnight so that it’s reflected in the morning. The accessibility of a mobile app is huge for managing all sorts of business,” he said.
Taking It Up a Notch
Looking ahead, here are a few cool POS features that vendors are implementing or considering for the future. Automatic profit margin adjustments: Modisoft’s software has a default margin feature that sets pricing for items based on how much a retailer wants to make from the sale. “If you assign an item to a specific department—say, beverages, for example—you can assign that category a basic margin, like 45%. Then it will automatically create the retail price for you, so you’re not losing money,” described Safi Modi, head of growth at Modisoft. “You can override that if you want, but it allows you to optimize the process.”
Biometric features: Vendors, including Mashgin and Verifone specifically, are looking at new ways to identify customers at point of sale, including with digital IDs for age verification, biometric payments, and biometric screenings and face ID for loyalty accounts. TruAge is also investigating possibilities for connecting its age-verified token to a customer profile or biometric feature at checkout. “Biometric features have generally been gaining a lot of traction,” said Paul Ziv, VP of technology and operations at TruAge.
Engaging digital displays: Modisoft offers a digital lottery display screen that integrates with the store’s POS and presents fun and dynamic displays when customers purchase lottery tickets. When a consumer buys a ticket, the screen on or behind the counter lights up with word displays, animations of the ticket bouncing across the screen or seasonal and holiday background animations depending on the time of year. “A lot of our customers have Christmas trees with snow falling during the winter or pumpkins lighting up during Halloween, for example. It’s there to attract attention and we have seen a big trend for digitizing sales and making them more engaging,” said Modi.
AI cameras: Retailers are using AI in myriad ways in store. Video surveillance with AI analysis at checkout can help reduce shrink, said Max Gorlov, team lead of technical design team at Petrosoft. “People are going to be less likely to steal when they see a camera watching them at checkout,” said Gorlov.
… have good support and training.
A POS’ uptime is a critical component of keeping the store running, but it’s also not realistic to say a system will never encounter problems, meaning good training and support from vendors will help retailers better tackle any snags.
“We can talk about all the latest and greatest leading-edge technology out there and exciting new trends, but retailers should also pay attention to what kind of investment providers are making back into their support,” said Hervey. “What is the support experience and what tools are they using to make it better?”
Hogan said Mashgin has focused on automated support and AI-based features that can help detect and troubleshoot a problem before it reaches the customer. “We fix most issues in three to five minutes, and sometimes we fix issues before they even start. We can do it virtually,” Hogan said. “We also have the ability to continue to take transactions in offline mode, which is a useful feature that has been adopted by about half of our clients.”
Vendors should also provide quality training to make sure employees know how to use the system and are able to troubleshoot small errors, said Gorlov.
“As retail staff are often dealing with bugs or solving problems themselves, good training materials are really important to provide to retailers,” said Gorlov. “It also needs to be easy for them to learn to use. We make sure all of our training modules and instructions are well documented, easy to follow and can provide staff members with troubleshooting techniques.”
… integrate with loyalty programs. There is a lot of intricacy to integrating loyalty programs with point of sale, said suppliers, and systems need to support multiple functions and often multiple loyalty programs at the same business. And point of sale providers, Raha said, need to be able to integrate with the numerous loyalty providers in the market that are running retailers’ programs.
Consider all of the tasks a POS system has to handle to successfully log loyalty points or redeem an item for the customer.
Investing in support isn’t just about the technical side. With immigrants and first-generation Americans making up a good portion of its customer base, Verifone has been building out a team of bilingual technical support staff to provide “native language support for customers calling the help desk, who may be proficient in English but need more support for discussing technical aspects of a point of sale,” said James Hervey, executive vice president, head of petro and convenience at Verifone.
A POS that’s flexible and easy to integrate with other programs can be an advantage for retailers.
Digital Age Verification
With an average of 54 million age-restricted transactions every day (excluding lottery), c-stores look at more IDs than any other industry. But with consumer concerns over privacy, potential errors and longer transaction times, checking IDs manually comes with its share of potential problems.
TruAge is a digital age verification tool that anonymizes a customer’s identity through a token (using only four data points to confirm age) and, when scanned, verifies that their credentials are valid, confirms the customer is of age, and logs proof that the verification took place into the POS system.
The ubiquitous and tech-agnostic solution is designed to integrate easily and seamlessly with retailers’ existing POS.
“At TruAge, we are working to ensure that we integrate with point-of-sale vendors as richly as possible in order to help facilitate a frictionless transaction for the customer,” said Paul Ziv, VP of technology and operations at TruAge Solutions.
“The further into the workflow that age verification is, the better it’s going to work for the retailer as well as the customer. Because TruAge is such a lightweight protocol—the data points that we process are super light and very fast—we can run over even what are sometimes less-than-ideal technical environments. TruAge is a race car, not a dump truck.”
Ziv said the company’s aim is to make TruAge as modular as possible, and “to integrate the age verification process wherever the retailer needs it to be,” whether that be integrating its token with customers’ digital wallets like Apple or Google Pay, loyalty apps or other POS ecosystems where a vendor might have their own wallet, for example, said Ziv.
The company also works closely with state governments to connect with mobile driver’s licenses (mDLs) and provide an extra layer of benefits on top of these digital IDs.
Another major goal of the technology: to speed up transaction time.
“Our goal is to ensure that wherever a retailer chooses to put TruAge in the customer checkout workflow, we assist in making that transaction faster and more frictionless,” said Ziv.
Ziv said that TruAge’s tech protocol and integration capability allows it to extend the benefits to a variety of POS vendors and to be used by large companies, small enterprises and independent operators. “We are working to level the playing field for the convenience industry so that an independent operator that doesn’t have the same resources as a large public company can still have the same opportunity and access to a solution like this to responsibly sell age-restricted items. By bringing pseudo-anonymous data into the enterprise, we can then push it to any retailer, anywhere, however they need it,” said Ziv.
“Looking at all the different use cases associated with earning points, making sure your system is working with the loyalty provider, allowing customers to spend or combine those points or get a deal … all of those different scenarios become pretty deeply embedded in the workflows that a point of sale needs to support,” said Raha.
Retailers are often also running multiple loyalty programs on the same site.
“It’s a unique quirk of our industry that convenience retailers will have one loyalty program for the store, and if they have branded fuel the major oil company will have their own loyalty program at the pump,” said Hervey. “You’re doing a lot of prompting at the payment terminal, which can make for a cumbersome process. It also opens retailers up to threats if those prompts aren’t encrypted and secured.”
Hervey said Verifone is investigating technology to tokenize identities for loyalty programs to make the process feel more seamless. The technology would link multiple loyalty programs to the same facial recognition token.
“Say that when you show up, you could just look at a camera and it pulls up all of your loyalty programs. You don’t have to worry about entering multiple phone numbers, swiping multiple cards, etc. So I think things like that, features that make the experience smoother when it comes to presenting payment or loyalty accounts, are also things that will work to make the consumer experience better,” said Hervey.
… support you for the long haul.
One of the top concerns for independent and smaller operators, according to Hervey, is the price-to-value ratio of equipment and software.
“Small and mid-size operators don’t have gigantic IT budgets, a large IT staff [or sometimes even one at all], or procurement at scale, so they have to really think about price to value,” said Hervey. It’s one of the reasons he said the company builds and manufactures its own hardware that is built for “significant longevity. You can find systems of ours that are 20-plus years old, that we don’t even support anymore, that are still out there running stores. So retailers need to consider the priceto-value ratio and what a provider is bringing to the table there.”
Lauren Shanesy is a writer and editor at NACS and has worked in business journalism for a decade. She can be reached at lshanesy@ convenience.org.
R E T PUTTING THE AI IN
Retailers weigh in on how convenience businesses of any size can start implementing AI now.
BY LAUREN SHANESY
A I
is being called many things—a revolution, a fleeting moment or a gamechanger, depending on who you ask.
“I think a lot of people are in denial that AI is not here to stay and that it’s a fad. But people said the same thing about the internet, too,” said Babir Sultan, owner of Fav Trip, a chain of five stores in Missouri.
Sultan is one of many retailers on the forefront of implementing the technology, using it for everything from creating marketing materials to gathering data about customers, inventory and pricing.
“There’s no excuse for operators nowadays—no matter the size of your business, there’s no reason why even smaller operators cannot dabble in AI. They should experiment,” he said. “It’s the way forward, as long as you’re approaching it with a practical, solution-oriented mindset.”
For Sanjeev Satturu, SVP, chief information officer at Casey’s General Stores, an Iowa-based retailer with around 2,900 stores across 20 states, AI’s biggest opportunity lies in how it can streamline operations for retailers. “Having clarity and aligning [use cases] to your business goals is very important,” he said. “First, what are your business goals? What are you trying to enhance, and what are the outcomes you’re trying to achieve?”
From streamlining corporate processes to improving the customer and employee experience in store, here are a handful of ways that retailers and industry thought leaders say the convenience industry can leverage AI.
FAV TRIP
Sultan has found myriad ways that AI can make employees’ jobs easier, help Fav Trip better serve his customers and cut down on time and energy spent doing repetitive tasks.
Social media and marketing: A few months ago, Sultan created his first-ever commercial for Fav Trip. It was fully generated by AI. The script was written using ChatGPT, and the video, voiceover and music were generated through a handful of AI software platforms. “It’s hard to get customers and employees to give testimonials on camera because they’re often shy, so we turned to AI and were able to get very realistic looking AI-generated videos,” he said. “They’ve been very easy for us to generate and the two that we’ve made took me literally less than half an hour each.”
Sultan is also using AI to create social media content and generate ideas for his YouTube channel, which has over 100,000 subscribers and 19 million views. “AI is like a smart college friend that gives you ideas, where you can go back and forth in something like ChatGPT and figure out if this is a good idea or a bad idea.”
Voice analytics: Fav Trip uses a vendor that places microphones around the store to capture audio and AI to analyze customer
sentiment and feedback from within the store. For example, if the system registers that customers are complaining about not getting receipts, Sultan is alerted to the issue and can contact a store manager to quickly figure out the problem. “It could be a problem with the pump, or it could just be that the receipt paper is out and the clerk doesn’t know. But something as simple as that can help with the customer experience,” he said.
Voice analytics can also help with employee retention, he said. “Maybe it picks up employees talking about wanting more or less hours, or a different shift schedule of mornings versus evenings. AI can analyze those sentiments and tell us that there might be a cultural issue we need to address, and we can easily avoid three or four employees leaving over something that can be easily fixed.”
Understanding the customer base: AI cameras can track customers throughout the store, generate heat maps of high-traffic areas and collect general demographic information about customers that helps operators tailor offerings to their customer base. “Our cameras give us demographic data and age data, so we can make better decisions. How should we paint a store? Should we have certain products? What should we carry? Does the store
IT’S THE WAY FORWARD, AS LONG AS YOU’RE APPROACHING IT WITH A PRACTICAL, SOLUTION-ORIENTED MINDSET.”
or inventory need to be more college friendly or support a local team?” he said. License plate recognition technology also helps Fav Trip track how many repeat customers are coming to the store.
“Restroom usage is another important one to track—the cameras can tell us if there are enough people to pass a certain threshold going into the restroom, and our staff are alerted to pay attention to the restroom or maybe clean it at a certain time because of heavy usage,” he said.
Tracking fuel prices: Fav Trip uses ChatGPT for competitive analysis of surrounding businesses and their gas prices. This used to require a manager taking a chunk of time each day to drive around and manually record data. “We added a task feature in ChatGPT where every morning at 5 a.m. and again at 2 p.m., before he leaves, without fail, the system will tell the manager what all of the surrounding gas prices are,” said Sultan. “That’s been a game changer, because humans forget to do things or get busy, or sometimes there is just human error. It also frees up so much time for him to do other things in the store.”
CASEY’S
When deciding how and where to deploy AI, Casey’s always considers “how automation and AI can help us be more efficient in our business. In convenience retail, efficiency and scalability are not just necessities, they are foundational,” said Satturu. “So our focus in deploying AI and identifying use cases is all about how we deploy agents to streamline mundane tasks and play a role to solve complex challenges that enhance business operations and outcomes.”
This Tokyo grocery story uses what it calls “Sommelier AI” to help customers find the perfect sake for any occasion.
INTERNATIONAL INSIGHTS: AI IN ASIA
There’s always someone in the world doing something differently than you—that’s the reason NACS holds events at global sites where trends and technology may be on more developed trajectories.
At the 2025 NACS Convenience Summit Asia in February, AI was the focus of several presentations and was also on display in stores throughout Tokyo.
SOCIAL COMMERCE IS GROWING
“AI will take convenience to the next level,” said Eelco Modderman, NielsenIQ’s managing director of APAC.
A big part of the growth will be around popular digital platforms. TikTok has gone well beyond serving up videos and is now part of growing “social commerce.” In China, social commerce sales are expected to top $1 trillion in 2025. Meanwhile, the self-professed “AI-powered answer engine” Perplexity added shopping features to not just answer a question but sell products. Investors are apparently sold on its prospects; it has grown from $500 million to $9 billion in valuation in under a year.
WANNA MAKE A PODCAST?
Brian Gray, global mobility retail lead for Accenture, showed some use cases for how to use Generative AI (GenAI) to enhance efficiencies and customer service. And with AgenticAI, a new step past GenAI, the options become even greater. He showed a quick example of a podcast he created in under a minute—the episode was about NACS and cited facts and stories about the industry, with professional co-hosts who had deep insights and banter that showed they had great chemistry together … except they weren’t real.
Gray created the 25-minute podcast by using AI to pull together information from leading c-store websites. There were a few facts that the imaginary hosts got wrong, but that was because the information online was outdated. The message to retailers as AI advances: Your website needs to be updated and contain great information, because AI is using it for summarizing Google searches or customer reviews—and even creating podcasts. For the record, NACS’ industry-leading Convenience Matters podcast features real hosts—as far as you know.
AI OR CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT?
AI is often thought of as a tool to identify customer needs without their knowledge, but the high-end grocery store Meidi-Ya in Tokyo uses what it calls AI to engage customers and help them select the sake that best suits their tastes. Much like an online virtual assistant, shoppers click through three questions and uncover their ideal sake, which is merchandised within arm’s length and ready for purchase.
—Jeff Lenard
AI IS LIKE ELECTRICITY. IT’S ALL AROUND US. WHO WILL TAP INTO AND USE THAT ENERGY?”
On both the corporate and in-store operations side, Satturu said Casey’s is using AI to increase productivity for team members and cut down on mundane tasks that take employees’ attention away from serving guests. The goal is to “free up time and dollars to be reinvested back in the business.”
“AI is like electricity. It’s all around us,” Satturu said. “Who will tap into and use that energy?”
Accurate order-completion times: When customers place a digital order, Casey’s provides them with a “smart promise time,” or the time for how long that order will take to make or get delivered if they’re using a third-party service.
“This is one place where we’ve started using AI technology to better provide a smart promise time based on the guests’ location, whether they’re inside or outside the store, and whether they’re ordering from a delivery service,” Satturu said. “We use the AI logic to help us deliver a more accurate smart promise time.”
IT support: A lot of employee engagement is dependent on what kind of support and service they receive from the IT department, Satturu said. “We have connected the dots that if the service is not good or they’re just calling the help desk waiting for someone to respond, it impacts employee engagement and also creates labor inefficiencies.”
Casey’s has started using AI to proactively find tech issues that may be happening at the store before an employee reports the problem. AI creates tickets and assigns priority levels, and in some cases even applies proactive measures to bring a system or a network back online if its gone down.
“We also use AI to help our IT team members provide a better experience and support to our store team members. For example, our footprint is now in Texas, so if someone is calling from Texas, we use AI to help train the agent to create that connection, maybe talking about the weather or even picking up the accent or using common nomenclature that they use in Texas,” he said.
ACCENTURE
“The narrative is not that AI will be replacing humans, but that with AI, humans will become more powerful,” said Richard Taylor, senior manager, strategy and consulting (energy, mobility retail) at Accenture at the 2025 Conexxus Annual Conference in January.
Taylor noted that while AI is quickly growing, there are still privacy concerns and education that needs to occur as retailers implement AI into their business.
“There’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. Consider who your employees are, what the culture in your organization is like, how you want to tackle these new technologies and what kinds of training and skill development your employees will need,” Taylor said.
For Taylor, there are three practical use cases for generative AI that convenience retailers can get started with.
Gauging call center customer sentiment: Retailers can use AI to enhance the customer experience while speaking to customer service agents and increase customer satisfaction from the call. One of Accenture’s clients with 1,000 sites receives about 4,000 calls per month.
“In order to get a sentiment analysis, you normally have to go through a good portion of those calls to understand if the customer is happy, and if not, why. It’s about 500man hours per month. But by running them through AI, we have been able to process them and get a sentiment analysis in 15 minutes,” Taylor said. “You can see top issues people called in with, how the agent handled it and how the customer is feeling at the end of the interaction. The rich data provided allows retailers to take these insights and drive better results.”
Personalizing offers to customers: In Argentina, Accenture is testing AI analysis that will help retailers learn more about their consumers so they can give them better experiences. “We’re able to leverage video and camera footage to understand a whole host of different information and data points about a customer profile. When a car pulls into the forecourt, does the customer have children? What’s the mood of the person when they turn into the site? How much will they want to spend based on the look and feel of their car? What’s the weather outside? All of these data points come together in a matter of seconds as a car approaches the pump,” Taylor said. That information can then be used to present the best product offer or promotion to that customer at the pump to convert them into the store.
THE NARRATIVE IS NOT THAT AI WILL BE REPLACING HUMANS, BUT THAT WITH AI, HUMANS WILL BECOME MORE POWERFUL.”
PEOPLE SAY AI WILL TAKE JOBS AWAY—AI WON’T TAKE YOUR JOB, BUT SOMEONE USING AI WILL.”
Forecasting fuel demand: Many factors contribute to how much fuel a retailer needs to order, and AI can make those calculations more precise, said Taylor. Beyond customer data and location data related to your site, Taylor said that AI can also add macroeconomic and geopolitical data and generate an analysis for more accurate fuel pricing. “In particular, Microsoft Copilot is constantly monitoring all this data and can say for example ‘Your brand has lost 2% market share in southern Florida, amounting to a lost margin of $80,000,’ and will make recommendations for what to do next. It can tell you to take an aggressive pricing strategy or adjust an average of three cents
across all the locations to capture increased volumes and recommend how to best manage your fuel supply,” Taylor said.
STAYING SOLUTION ORIENTED
If you’ve seen the animated movie “Up,” you’ll remember the running joke that Doug, the dog, gets easily distracted by squirrels, and will shout “squirrel” mid-sentence when he sees one. That’s what Sultan said evaluating new AI technologies can feel like some days.
“With all the latest AI news and things coming out at a rapid pace, there’s the squirrel effect—as a retailer, it’s easy to get excited and you want to try everything,” he said. “The challenge is staying focused, and you do that by starting with the problem and reverse engineering from there. Identify the problem and then figure out what tool you’re going to use to solve it.”
Satturu takes the same approach at Casey’s. “We firmly believe that 80% of the solution is in defining the problem. This is where having the right evaluation criteria to define the problem by tying it back to your business initiatives is very critical. If you start looking at technology first without doing that, then it’ll be scattershot and you don’t want to apply AI to a bad process. Don’t use AI as a silver bullet. It should enhance what you’re doing,” he said.
Satturu also stressed that its critical to have robust governance over your technology and work within a responsible AI framework. “How do you create responsible AI for yourself? Because if you do not, then you’ll actually create a lot of inefficiencies and let a lot of technology debt into your operations. And being compliant is very important, because if you’re not, then you are opening yourself up to a cyberattack, which could be extremely debilitating to your business.”
And while AI can do a lot, it still can’t do many things a human can. That’s why Satturu thinks of it not as a replacement, but as co-intelligence. “AI will give you options, but at the end of the day, a human still has to collaborate with it,” he said. “People say AI will take jobs away—AI won’t take your job, but someone using AI will.”
Lauren Shanesy is a writer and editor at NACS and has worked in business journalism for a decade. She can be reached at lshanesy@ convenience.org.
BUILDING FUTURE
Construct a new store or go into an existing building? Experts explore the pros and cons of both moves.
BY AMANDA BALTAZAR
WHAT’S YOUR BUSINESS MODEL?
Across the 152,000 c-stores in the United States, that question will determine whether new builds or remodels make more sense.
Plenty of operators are experts at taking over existing locations and either mostly keeping them the same or doing a quick remodel. Others have store personalities that require more square footage and a consistent brand experience.
THE CASE FOR NEW BUILDS
Rutter’s operates a chain of 87 convenience stores in states including Pennsylvania, Maryland and West Virginia, and opens multiple new stores a year that are at least 10,000 square feet in size.
Almost always, these new locations are built from the ground up, said Chris Hartman, vice president of fuels, advertising and development, though about once a decade the chain might go into an existing building.
For Rutter’s, “We prefer new buildings because we have a unique offering—foodservice, big coolers, large bathrooms, gaming in Pennsylvania, and we have large beer caves,” said Hartman. “It’s very hard to find existing stores that fit our footprint.”
RUTTER’S
A new build is more cost-effective and fits Rutter’s style better, Hartman pointed out, “rather than trying to put a square peg into a round hole.” If Rutter’s goes into an existing building, “It almost ends up being a new store” he said.
New builds also require ample acreage to incorporate a large store, parking, a car wash, and fueling/forecourt space.
Most Love’s Travel Stops stores are new builds “because that allows us to develop a location that meets our standards, including an open and modern store layout that includes showers and laundry,” said Randy Swain, director of construction and remodels for the Oklahoma City-based company.
For new builds, the biggest advantage, Swain said, is that Love’s can work off of “the new store playbook we have developed with our contractor partners, allowing us to design and build a facility that fits the space and meets customers’ needs.”
New builds, said Blake Holton, vice president of operations at King Retail Solutions, Eugene, Oregon, mean “You can drive the space, instead of the space driving the layout.”
They are also likely to last longer. “You’ll have more years out of that asset and more years of quality function from mechanicals to refrigeration to finishes,” Holton says. New sites can incorporate more sustainable features like energy-efficient equipment and eco-friendly materials. This is important to younger shoppers, he pointed out.
King Retail Solutions helps retailers like Power Market and Giant Oil build new stores.
An additional expense with new builds is that some states now require that c-stores retain their own stormwater on site. “A lot of places don’t have the money to put that detention pond underground,” says Mike McMunn, permitting manager, Royston LLC, a Jasper, Georgia-based company that designs interiors, including made-toorder cabinetry and shelving for convenience stores. Existing locations may not be required to put these in unless the c-store operator is expanding the building.
REMODEL BENEFITS
Remodeled locations can typically open their doors as a new convenience store in eight to 12 weeks, said Danny White, vice president, construction services for Royston, versus four to 12 months for a new build.
A benefit of going into an existing location is the ability to make quick changes like updating shelving and gondolas, which can make a significant difference in just a few weeks. It’s also “drastically less expensive,” Holton said. “But you have to consider your return on investment.” That return might come slower with a renovated location because it may not have the excitement of a new, ground-up build, he said.
Rutter’s considers remodeling existing stores if it finds them in a great location and if they were previous c-stores that already have good bones, layout and infrastructure.
On a few occasions Love’s has acquired existing sites. In 2023, it acquired 11 EZ Go turnpike travel plazas and converted all the
store locations except one, which it will raze and rebuild in 2025.
“We switched out the logos and incorporated more of our brand colors on the walls,” said Lance Schmidt, director of facilities maintenance at Love’s.
“Where appropriate we updated the layout of the sales floor. We also upgraded key sales floor equipment that customers count on, including fountain drink machines and ice makers,” said Schmidt.
One of the biggest challenges was making the exteriors of the former EZ GO sites look and feel more like a Love’s. That included changing out the gas and diesel canopies so they were brighter, safer and representative of the Love’s brand.
There are advantages to a remodeled and rebranded locations, Swain pointed out, like having infrastructure from a restaurant and retail section. This can “make things more seamless and is less costly in the short term.” However, he adds, “the customer experience always comes first so if infrastructure is seriously outdated, we will replace it.”
Another plus, Swain said, is that existing locations already have a track record and reporting that Love’s can access in most cases.
When Love’s goes into a preexisting space, the first changes are updating the signage and branding, including the store front, interior fixtures, fueling canopies and pumps, as well as the restrooms. “We also make it a priority to add other services customers are used to, including Love’s Fresh Kitchen options and fueling at our diesel bays,” said Swain.
Going into remodel sites varies vastly from one to another. Sometimes retailers do a complete knock-down of the inside, said Holton, which gives them more potential sites to consider, including prime real estate.
In a location that needs a remodel, Holton said, c-stores are also reliant on what the previous operator wanted. It’s still a previously owned store, built to suit someone else’s retailing strategy, he pointed out, even if you strip it back to the studs and remodel it aggressively.
Renovated locations with higher ceilings help create spaces that feel larger and more inviting, and “allow for the use of clerestory windows and more natural light,” Holton
said. Exterior facades benefit from taller walls by allowing for more interesting architectural elements.
“C-stores are really trying to provide a welcoming experience,” he explained. “How a shopper feels can have a big impact on what they buy.”
INFRASTRUCTURE IMPORTANCE
It’s essential to evaluate the infrastructure in an already existing space. The infrastructure can often be reused, but anticipate that upgrades will be required—either known upfront or discovered during the project.
Amber Wood, senior plumbing designer and project manager at Dialectic Engineering
CURRENT TRENDS IN C-STORE DESIGN
There’s no one “right way” to design a convenience store. But there are lots of opportunities to stand out and build a brand, according to Austin Burns, president and CEO of design firm Paragon Solutions, Fort Worth, Texas. Following a slow period in terms of interest in store remodeling or new
half of 2024, Burns said he saw inquiries pick up as the second quarter approached this year. “I think everyone … was waiting to see what the results of the election were going to be, what impact that would have on rates and the cost of capital and so on,” he said. “Conversely, there’s been a
election, too, followed by the holidays. People are just now saying, ‘Let’s get going.’”
Now he sees “a lot of interest in retailers reinvesting in themselves, not just updating stores, but developing brands and brand consistency, a cohesiveness between stores,” said Burns, who took on the role of president and CEO of Paragon in June, when founder Mike Lawshe retired. “It’s a fun time in the industry right now. You’re starting to see younger leaders stepping up, trying to do some different things. It’s a great time for companies to reinvest in themselves, to explore different ways to reach clientele, to think about who you are as a brand. We always say, ‘Don’t compete, differentiate.’”
Burns shares some common—and some not-so-common—elements retailers are incorporating into their stores to do just that: differentiate.
in Kansas City, Missouri, suggested inspecting the infrastructure early in the planning process, “because that can change quite a bit on the cost side of things.”
For electricity, there may not be enough amps. For plumbing, jurisdictional requirements may have changed for things like three-compartment sinks or mop sinks since the building was constructed, she explained.
Around 90% of the time, HVAC systems can be reused, she said, especially if the space was already a convenience store. Generally, if HVAC equipment is more than 10 years old, she recommends replacing it.
“Layout changes, adding kitchen equipment, what the space was previously used for, and
COMMON
LOVE’S
UNCOMMON
Better restrooms. “The No. 1 thing is restrooms. Everybody wants to have good, clean restrooms. … People have an expectation now. If you don’t have a good restroom, you’re missing out on a lot of clientele.” Specifically, Burns said, you’re missing out on women and families. “Restrooms pay off. Restrooms are a profit center. Restrooms are worth it.”
Building up foodservice. “Consumers are looking for experiential. There’s opportunity in developing a good food program and then lighting it in the store. Maybe it’s a little more theater, with an open kitchen concept to appeal to the five senses.”
Lighting. “There’s a need for a quality, well-kept, well-lit and safe environment.”
Attention to local. “People are looking for things that relate to them from a local perspective.” In the Northeast, for example, retailers are shrinking the fountain area, committing that space to the coffee/ hot drink bar, instead. It can also mean blending in architecturally. “Tying into local design requirements is a big deal. Store owners should understand that this is not a limitation. It’s an opportunity.”
Smaller stores/attention to labor. “With the growing cost of labor and construction, you’ve got to find a way to do it cheaper. … Bigger is not always better. … Clients are asking: How can we be more efficient with what we’re doing?”
Beer caves. “These continue to be a unique element if they’re done right.”
Delivery/curbside pickup. “It’s a bit of a Covid hangover, but clients are asking a lot of questions about that. ‘Is it right for my location?’”
Self-checkout/frictionless. “This has been scrutinized. When I speak to new clients, they’re not saying, ‘We have to have self-checkout.’ Instead, it’s, ‘What are your thoughts on self-checkout?’ My guidance is always: ‘What is your brand?’ Then we consider geography. Does it fit the location?”
Drive-thru. While still rare in the industry, “There’s a lot of interest in learning more about drive-thru.”
How do retailers decide if these elements are right for their stores?
“The question I always ask our clients is: ‘Why are we doing this?’” Burns said. From there, he urges clients to be realistic based on store size, location and budget. “Let’s answer those questions: What are your profit centers? What are we trying to heighten the experience of to get the best return on your investment?”
—Steve Holtz
jurisdictional requirement updates all could potentially increase the possibility of needing to revise the HVAC system,” she added.
In converted spaces, said Wood, what’s under the concrete slab or inside the walls may not be known until renovations begin. She recommended X-raying the slab before signing a contract. Also, conducting a survey of a space and knowing what services and utilities exist can help uncover potential problems. “The more we know, the better we can help offset those hiccups later in the project.”
Other infrastructure considerations include whether restrooms are being moved, as plumbing may need to be relocated or placed deeper. ADA requirements may also require additional adjustments to the restrooms, like changes to the ductwork, plumbing, ventilation and electrical.
It’s a good idea to start planning a remodel around making a building ADA-compliant, said McMunn, then work from there. ADA is especially important in the bathrooms, so wheelchairs can turn around, he pointed out.
“We’re going to have to rebuild if it’s not ADA-compliant, or even move [the bathrooms] to a different area of the store,” said White. “Any time we go into an existing space the bathrooms drive the ADA compliance.”
GREASE INTERCEPTORS
Convenience stores that prepare food may need to install a grease interceptor to comply with local regulations. These devices are intended to prevent fats, oils and grease from entering the sewer system.
“Out West, because water is at a premium, they are recycling water at every possible turn and require grease interceptors everywhere, even if you don’t have raw food,” said Mike McMunn, permitting manager, Royston LLC.
“If you have anything grease-related that you would need to wash in a three-compartment sink, you need a grease interceptor,” he explained.
McMunn said that grease interceptors are typically 100 to 500 gallons and take up a lot of space underground, which can be “a huge factor,” especially in urban locations with less space. Grease interceptors cost anywhere from $5,000 to $30,000.
McMunn shared that this requirement has changed a lot of the “dynamics of how sites are being identified.”
BUDGET AND TIME
The two factors that typically derail construction projects are budget and time.
It’s important to be realistic and do plenty of due diligence, suggested Hartman of Rutter’s, and to make sure there is a clear understanding among all project stakeholders on the scope of the budget and the timeline for completion.
This can help avoid pitfalls—“or they’re not as numerous, because you’re aware of 80% of them versus having them all hit you at different times, and that’s when a lot of the unexpected expenses can come in,” said Hartman.
Operators who exceed their budget will, for years, deal with a lower ROI, pointed out Tim Spiegelglass, owner of Spiegelglass Construction Company, Maryland Heights, Missouri. It’s important to put time into the budgeting step and to have a contingency budget, he added, which is about 10% of the job.
Spiegelglass first comes up with a budget, then shares it with his client, and then can adjust with some value engineering, such as using less expensive finishes.
If you’re renting the site, talk to your landlord, Spiegelglass said. Often the landlord will pay for, or partially pay for, improvements to the building like a new roof or allow the operator to pay off certain improvements over time.
When it comes to timing, Chuck Taylor, director of operations at Englewood Construction in Lemont, Illinois, commonly sees things fall apart when there’s poor coordination between the equipment schedule and the construction documents.
Therefore, he says, it’s important to “make sure equipment’s available when it’s needed, or it could derail the entire schedule by several days.”
Taylor keeps both a master schedule and a three-week schedule that includes a look ahead, pinpointing exactly what’s happening daily. As he wraps up each day, he creates a log that details what happened and compares it against the three-week schedule.
Amanda Baltazar has been writing about foodservice and retail for trade magazines for more than 20 years. Read more of her work at www.chaterink.com
Convenience to Congress From
At the end of 2024, Congressman Tony Wied (R-WI) joined the 118th Congress to represent Wisconsin’s 8th district. Prior to running for office, Wied owned Dino Stop Convenience Stores, a six-store chain in the Green Bay area, for almost 25 years.
“I was prepared to keep running my convenience stores for the rest of my life and really liked doing it. But I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to sell when it came along,” Wied said. He sold the stores at the end of 2022. He took the next year to reflect on what he wanted to do next. When former Representative Mike Gallagher announced an early retirement, Wied jumped into the race.
“I’ve always wanted to serve our country and feel like it’s something I have an obligation to do,” he said. “Having a strong business background suits me well for being in a position like this and to lead in our country. To me, I truly feel like this is a service mission and that I’m placed here to do good work.”
After selling his six convenience stores in the Green Bay, Wisconsin, area, Tony Wied took the leap and ran for Congress.
Tony Wied is one of the very few former convenience business owners to hold a congressional office.
I grew up working at their stores, running the cash register when I was 13 or 14, cleaning bathrooms, stocking shelves and other jobs around the store as a teenager.
HOW DID YOU GET INTO THE CONVENIENCE BUSINESS?
I grew up in a very entrepreneurial family. My parents owned a snowmobile salvage yard and repair shop where they sold used snowmobile parts. They also had firework stands that they eventually added gasoline to in the early ’80s. I grew up working at their stores, running the cash register when I was 13 or 14, cleaning bathrooms, stocking shelves and other jobs around the store as a teenager.
My dad and his brother were partners, and my uncle unexpectedly passed away when I was a senior in college. That’s when I told my parents I wanted to get involved and help run their stores. I was so full of energy and really wanted to grow that business. But I also always knew I wanted to be entrepreneurial. Convenience stores were really starting to blossom as a good business in the ’90s. It was a difficult business to get into, but I decided to put all my energy into that, acquired Dino Stop, got partners, investors and building loans, and then built my first store in 1999—it was a very big store on Interstate 43 in Wisconsin, just south of Green Bay.
After that I couldn’t sit still. I managed that store and then started working on a store just 30 minutes south that was co-branded with McDonald’s. Within about a year and a half, I’d built another store. I just started locating land, securing financing and continuing to build stores. That was pretty much the first 15 years of my adult working life—building stores over and over again.
WHAT DO YOU MISS MOST ABOUT THE C-STORE BUSINESS?
I think the number one thing I miss is serving customers daily and interacting with both them and my staff. Getting to know people and their families and seeing familiar faces every day was truly the best part of the job.
WHAT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF WHEN YOU LOOK BACK ON YOUR TIME IN THE CONVENIENCE INDUSTRY?
Well, it’s a very difficult business. Anyone that has convenience stores knows how many moving parts there are when running a retail store, especially a convenience store or gas station, and especially once you start adding foodservice and some of the other new innovations stores have today. I’m proud that I was able to run a small business with my wife and manage something with so many moving parts. I didn’t always think I could do it, but we continued on.
It’s a day-by-day business. Every day is different, whether you’re dealing with hiring, securing capital, working with banks or continuing to reinvest. It’s a very capital-intensive business, with petroleum equipment, real estate and all sorts of other things.
And you have to keep up with the times, so I’m proud that we continued to innovate. I couldn’t have just done what I did in 1999 in 2015. Our store wouldn’t have survived. So retailers really have to be involved in NACS, be involved in their local state organizations, really see what others are doing and stay on top of the industry. I know it’s very difficult to try new things, but you have to in order to be successful in the convenience store business. It’s an intense business.
HOW DID THAT EXPERIENCE PREPARE YOU FOR SERVING IN CONGRESS?
It is so important that I had that business experience and dealt with not only the difficulties of running a business, but also experienced being successful at it.
Wied acquired Dino Stop Convenience Stores in the late ‘90s.
We had to make a lot of tough decisions while also leading a team of people and making sure they had what they needed to be the ones touching customers’ lives every single day. There are so many components to running a convenience store or a truck stop, but by far the most important thing is being a good leader and developing a good culture so that you can deliver best-in-class service for the customers, so that they’re happy and come back.
You also have to be willing to realize that you don’t know it all. You have to be a forever learner and know that what worked 10 years
ago does not work today, or that what was your best store 10 years ago may have now become your worst store.
From going through all of those challenges, and having times where I didn’t think I would make it financially in the very lean years, sometimes due to things outside my control, I learned that if you take it day by day, continue to be disciplined and do the right thing, you will end up being okay and come out on the other side.
You get stronger through the difficulties. And I think my experience as a convenience store owner prepared me to work in what’s currently not a very functional environment. I have to come in [to Congress] and find small ways of improving things. I know it’s going to take time and take getting other people in the House to come together to realize that if we continue to do what we’re doing, we’re going to leave nothing but trouble for our next generation.
ARE THERE ANY EXAMPLES OF HOW THAT EXPERIENCE IS HELPING YOU IN YOUR CURRENT WORK?
Running a convenience store was a very disciplined business. You literally have to watch every penny. If you can save $1 per week, you do it. You’re constantly evaluating your budget line by line to make sure that your expenses don’t creep up, especially because we have things that we can’t control, like credit card fees that continue to go up. I was seeing $80,000 credit card fees per store on my balance sheet in 2022. You have to stay on top of everything, because as the owner and operator, if I don’t make my store work, then I’ll lose everything and won’t be able to provide for my family.
We’re in a situation now where our government is not disciplined. We aren’t going through anything line by line and we’re spending more than we bring in. When I was running my stores, 2% was a good profit margin goal for me. So now, I’m moving from a situation of very, very tight margins to leading in an organization that is completely underwater, where we’re currently spending up to $2 trillion more than we have every single year. All business owners know that if you spend more than you bring in, you’re going to go broke.
That’s why I am such a proponent of going through our expenses as a country line by line and debating each individual spending bill, because that’s what I had to do in business, and is what every small business has to do. And unfortunately, we don’t do that in the government.
WHAT ARE YOUR TOP PRIORITIES THIS CONGRESS?
We have a spending problem, and we have to get closer to a balanced budget, which is going to be extremely difficult. That just stemmed from people not truly being focused on what we need to do [to rein in spending].
I think we have a prime opportunity now with a unified government, with [Republicans] having control of the House, the Senate and the Presidency, and have people that all want to accomplish that. It’s going to be difficult, but it is a priority for me to get our spending under control because as a country, we have to get inflation under control. The cause of inflation is the reckless spending we continue to do, which is then what’s causing rising prices, which is what hurts our customers. Many of our customers are on fixed incomes or use benefits, and they’re going to
I learned that if you take it day by day, continue to be disciplined and do the right thing, you will end up being okay and come out on the other side.
Wied, pictured with his wife Angela, was sworn in to the 118th Congress in November 2024 after winning a special election.
Fuel
have to pay up to 40% more because of high prices. That’s a big concern for our country, and we just can’t continue to do that.
WHAT IS SOMETHING YOU’VE ENJOYED SINCE COMING TO WASHINGTON, D.C.?
I have enjoyed getting to know and work with other members of Congress. There are people here from so many different backgrounds and I thoroughly enjoy building those relationships, on both sides of the aisle, so we can work together for the American people.
WHAT IS YOUR ADVICE FOR CONVENIENCE RETAILERS AND NACS MEMBERS ON ENGAGING WITH THEIR ELECTED OFFICIALS?
In my short time in Congress, I can say that I’ve seen how important it is that businesses in any industry get in front of lawmakers. That needs to be at the state level and at the federal level. So I would encourage folks to use the resources within NACS, get on the Hill and
just get in front of as many people as you can to talk about issues you are facing. Meeting faceto-face with lawmakers is the most impactful way to get the help you need from a government perspective.
I also realize that as a business owner, a lot of the time we actually need government to get out of the way. You need to explain the effects that the regulations that continue to be placed on business owners at both the state and federal level are having on your business, because we have to start working on pulling those back and letting the good people that are running our businesses survive and thrive.
Team’s Future with a Scholarship!
I encourage you, if you have the time, to please get in front of your lawmakers, get a hold of your local state senator or your local state assembly, build a relationship and get to know them. Invite them to your store or your office. Let them know what you’re dealing with, because they need to know what’s most important to you as a business. A lot of the perspective that you bring as a convenience store owner is relevant to other industries as The NACS Foundation Future Fund awards $3,000 scholarships to convenience store employees and their families. Celebrate hard work, dedication and ambition by helping your rising stars achieve their educational dreams!
Applications are open through Friday, June 13, 2025.
SUBMIT YOUR NOMINATIONS TODAY! Visit conveniencecares.org/Future-Fund or email Kevin O’Connell, Executive Director, NACS Foundation, koconnell@convenience.org to download the application.
well—farming, manufacturing, etc.—and a lot of the issues are similar. So if you can get involved, you can make a big difference.
WHAT’S SOMETHING YOU WANT TO LEAVE CONVENIENCE RETAILERS READING THIS ARTICLE WITH?
I think more people need to get involved in politics. Especially at the local level. You need to take care of your towns and get to know elected officials in the towns, counties and states that you operate in, and at the federal level as well. As convenience stores, you are in every community in this country and literally are such an important part of the community and of the economy. It’s not about bragging, but you need to explain the benefits that you offer to the community, as well as let people know about the challenges you face and the help that you need.
Now being on this side in Congress, I realize the benefit of being active even more. If you can, get involved. I’m sure you’ll have a lot of fun and meet a lot of great people along
the way, too. You’ll learn from your peers, gain new best practices and will become a much better operator by not staying isolated in your one location. As hard as running a convenience store is, try to carve out time to get involved politically.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CONVENIENCE STORE ITEM OR SNACK?
Homemade chocolate chip cookies.
Wied at one of his six Dino Stop locations, which he owned until late 2022.
Cool New Products Guide
This advertorial-style guide of services and packaging appears monthly and is an information-packed tour of ideas and approaches that can change how consumers view your store or choose your brand. It spotlights the newest thinking in convenience and fuel retailing and gives you an advance look at ways of staying in front of industry trends. Products are categorized the same way we organize the Cool New Products Preview Room at the NACS Show each year in October— New Design, New to the Industry, New Flavors, Health & Wellness, Green (EcoFriendly), New Services and New Technology Products are considered “new” this year if they’ve been introduced since October 2024. The products featured here also can be seen in the Cool New Products Discovery Center at www.convenience.org/coolnewproducts XDX MAX is a highly concentrated concrete and asphalt cleaner designed to tackle the toughest stains found in fuel dispensing areas. Diesel spills, oil stains, heavy grease, and food stains can leave a lasting negative impression on customers. XDX MAX can blast through grime without scrubbing, saving time and ensuring a spotless environment. The five-gallon pail provides enough cleaning solution to perform routine maintenance or treat deep-set stains. XDX MAX is oil-water separator friendly, guaranteeing that long-term operations run smoothly. Cleaning is simple. Spray directly onto gas pads, focusing on areas with heavy oil and grease buildup. Allow the cleaner to dry completely, then rinse with water. If rinsing is prohibited simply spray and walk away.
MAX Concrete and Asphalt Degreaser
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Try the newest flavor from Monster Energy! Ultra Blue Hawaiian is a killer combo of exotic Polynesian fruit flavors that are big on taste, but with zero sugar and only 10 calories. With a full load of our world-famous Monster Energy Blend, this aloha energy will keep you goin’ and the shakas flowin’ from dawn patrol to last call. For more information, please visit https:// www.monsterenergy.com/en-us/ Introducing
Stone Gate Foods
Tater Kegs
THE TATER THAT’S GREATER
Tater Kegs are shredded potato mixed with delicious flavors. All the best parts of a baked potato in the perfect handheld package. From the freezer, to the fryer, to the customer. Serve them in a variety of different ways and in many different applications. Great for to-go. Tater Kegs have a hold time of up to 4 hours under heat lamps. With all the uncertainties in the world today we should be able to be certain that our food always has great flavor, and Tater Kegs provide that comfort in every bite!
Tater Keg flavors include Bacon Cheddar Chive, Cheese Bomb, Bacon Jalapeno, Buffalo Chicken, Crab Feast, Chorizo Burrito, Breakfast Skillet & The Reuben. Request samples today at www.taterkegs.com!
Mike’s Hot Honey
24oz Chef’s Bottle with Drizzle-Ready Cap
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Mike’s Hot Honey was founded out of a Brooklyn pizzeria in 2010 and has become the #1 fastest growing pizza topping. Mike’s Hot Honey is pleased to share that we have partnered with FIFO Innovations to create a custom cap for our 24oz Squeeze bottle. This new cap allows you to store the bottle upside down so the product is always ready to drizzle, plus the bottom-dispensing feature significantly reduces leftover honey. Integrating Mike’s Hot Honey into your operation has never been easier! Request a sample today to see what all the buzz is about: mikeshothoney.com/sample
NACS State of the Industry® Talent Insights Dashboard
RECRUIT. RETAIN. THRIVE.
Considered an essential dashboard for HR professionals in the convenience channel for more than 40 years, the NACS State of the Industry® Talent Insights Dashboard is the industry’s premier compensation benchmarking resource. This year’s survey of 2024 data, provides the latest data, trends and best practices on compensation, benefits, recruitment and turnover as reported by 103 retail companies, representing more than 50,000 stores of all sizes and over 315,000 employees. www.convenience.org/Research
Executive Education
From disruption comes opportunity. At this very moment, the convenience industry is rich with possibility. The key to success? Leaders who can forge a new path. Informed, confident and nuanced leaders are the best asset an organization can have. NACS Executive Education has partnered with world-class, Ivy League institutions — boasting some of the best educators in the world — to provide exclusive education to shape the forward-thinking, determined leaders who will illuminate and seize the opportunities of tomorrow.
convenience.org/NACSExecEd
July 13-18, 2025
The Wharton School University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA
July 20-25, 2025
Kellogg School of Management Northwestern University Evanston, IL
August 3-7, 2025
The Dyson School Cornell University Ithaca, NY
November 2-7, 2025
MIT Sloan School of Management Cambridge, MA
November 9-14, 2025
Yale School of Management New Haven, CT
The NACS Master of Convenience designation acknowledges the leaders from around the globe who have invested in their personal leadership development and attended 3 or more NACS Executive Education Programs. Learn more at convenience.org/NACSMaster.
Fun Foods and Local Favorites
Bear’s One Stop finds success by breaking culinary rules.
BY AL HEBERT
From the Allagash Swamp Devil hanging on the wall to the coyote hat worn by owner Robert Berg, there’s a sense of fun at Bear’s One Stop in Newport, Maine. Berg drove past the store for twenty years while he operated a t-shirt business. He told himself that if the store ever came for sale, he would buy it. The convenience store went up for sale in 2016 at a good price, Berg said, and he offered the full asking price. Later, “I worried about some title issues and got cold feet and wanted to back out.” As a result, he ended up getting it for 25% less than listed.
“I have some fun. I make a little money. I keep it casual. I keep it loose. It’s a relaxed atmosphere. I do it with customers, vendors and employees. Our employees have fun,” he said.
The Red Maine Hot Dog pizza is a favorite for customers of Bear’s One Stop—and it was created by owner Robert Berg himself.
KITCHEN CREATIVITY
Berg feels that creativity in the kitchen is important. “Every once in a while, the cooks might have a failure. But we don’t get many complaints. We actually get plenty of requests. Our customers will let us know one way or the other what they want and like,” he said.
Walking into his store, Berg said that he will have no clue what’s on the menu that day. “It depends on the cook. The crew decides what they want to do. I have my crew out there and let them go at it. They don’t have to run it by me. I trust them,” he said.
According to Berg, a lot of culinary rules are broken at his store. Consistency is one, but it seems to work at Bear’s One Stop. “Our whoopie pies are homemade, so they are not standard. Clerk A makes them one way today and Clerk B makes them another way tomorrow. They will be different,” he said. The whoopie pies stand out in another way, too: They weigh about 10 pounds. “We are not good with portion control,” Berg said with a laugh.
“The in-house meat market accounts for a quarter of our inside sales,” he said. The hamburger meat is ground fresh daily. “Even in the meat market, customers can find fun, creative items. For example, for Valentine’s Day, hopeless romantics can buy heart-shaped, his-and-her ribeyes. You put two ribeyes together and they end up shaped like a heart,” he said.
If a menu item isn’t quite what Berg thinks it should be, it disappears immediately. He sees the ability to make quick decisions as an advantage over competitors.
‘THERE’S NO LIMIT TO PIZZA’ Berg said that he doesn’t believe there’s a limit to what a good cook can do with pizza. And he shows it in his menu.
For one specialty pizza, fresh fiddleheads are used as a topping. Fiddleheads, a Maine favorite, are ferns picked from the ground in March and April. “People will ask if the fiddleheads are up. … Mainer folks really love them,” said Berg.
What about the flavor? “It’s fern. You can boil them or fry them in a pan with butter and garlic. Do people like the fiddleheads or the garlic and butter?” he said, adding, “I had escargot once and it was drowned in garlic and butter. I tasted mostly garlic and butter. Fiddleheads are like that. I’ve eaten plain fiddleheads. I don’t think you could eat a lot without something on them.”
Another regional favorite is the Red Maine Hot Dog Pizza. In Maine, bright red hot dogs are a local favorite and have been around for over 160 years. “I thought they needed to be on a pizza,” Berg said.
“We take a traditional red hot dog and put eight of them on a pizza. Depending on the cook, we either lay them out whole or chop them up,” he explained. “We add cheese and onions.”
“We used to do a Big Mac Pizza, and some people gave us grief,” Berg said. “So now I call it an Almost Big Mac Pizza.” The pizza is made with hamburger meat, onion, lettuce, tomato and thousand island dressing.
BIG PORTIONS AND UNPREDICTABLE OFFERS
Customers come in like clockwork for the lunch specials.
On Fridays, Bear’s One Stop offers brisket. The same people who supply the store’s ribeyes and hamburger meat supply the brisket. “Brisket is fussy to smoke. We used to do it in-house for St. Patrick’s Day, but our supplier does it perfectly,” Berg explained, adding, “It’s our No. 1 requested item. We should probably do it more than one day a week.”
Every Wednesday is pasta day, but the details vary week to week.
“We sometimes do chop-chop suey. We make it here with our seasonings. I tell staff to ‘chop chop’ all the time,” Berg said. Other times, the cooks will make lasagna, which is made with freshly ground beef. And Berg noted, the portions are big.
‘IT’S
A HURRY-UP
WORLD’ “Customers don’t want to wait. It’s a hurry-up world,” said Berg. He’s added some improvements to enhance the customer experience.
“We had to upgrade the fuel tanks in 2021-2022. I bought them myself rather than having Sunoco pay for the project. They went from pumping eight gallons a minute to ten gallons a minute. It doesn’t sound like much, but if you have lines at the pumps on the Fourth of July, it makes a difference,” he said.
Once the new tanks were in, he decided to redo the parking lot. “While we were upgrading the pumps and tanks, it seemed like the right time,” he said.
“In 2019, we upgraded our POS system. I’m proud of that. It’s fast and modern with up-to-date encryption. It’s user friendly and the staff likes it. I did a lot of homework on it,” he said. “It’s one of the best things I’ve done since I bought the store. Our old systems were an absolute dinosaur. The new system is fast.”
Al Hebert is the Gas Station Gourmet, showcasing America’s hidden culinary treasures. Find him at www.GasStationGourmet.com.
Every day, store employee Patsy LeClair writes the lunch specials on the menu board, a picture of which is also posted to the store’s Facebook page.
Beer Sales Have Gone Flat
After several years of growth, beer sales in c-stores are softening.
BY TERRI ALLAN
Any slight gains the beer category reaped in convenience stores in 2023 appear to have been reversed. Still, marketers emphasize that the category remains a vitally important one for the channel as it’s a key in-store revenue and margin contributor and huge traffic driver.
“Coming off the back of four years of growth, c-stores were actually down 1% in 2024 for beer,” despite strong performances by imported brews and continued growth for flavored products, said Chris Risk, senior manager of customer solutions at Molson Coors Beverage Co.
Greg Merlo, vice president, category leadership, at Anheuser-Busch InBev (A-B InBev), noted that even with the lackluster performance, dollar sales for
beer in c-stores were nearly twice that of energy drinks last year. “Key performance drivers included accessibility, as beer provides shoppers with affordable entry points within beverage alcohol across price tiers and styles,” he said.
According to the NACS State of the Industry (SOI) Report® of 2023 Data, average beer sales per store, per month increased to $17,812, with an average gross profit of $3,683. The category accounts for just under 7% of all instore sales. For the first half of 2024,
$3,683
The average gross profit dollar contribution from beer per store, per month.
Source: NACS State of the Industry Report® of 2023 Data
beer sales per store, per month largely tracked that of the prior three years, but by the third quarter, sales began to dip lower, NACS CSX data shows. Emma Tainter, research analyst at NACS, said that while beer is “a consistent and steady category for c-stores,” retailers should be aware of emerging trends that may hamper growth for all alcoholic beverages going forward, such as reduced consumption by Gen Z consumers.
HEALTHY SUBCATEGORIES
While performances for major subcategories such as premium and popular beers fell lower in 2023, several
subsegments enjoyed growth in c-stores, namely flavored malt beverages, imports, and non-alcoholic brews. According to SOI data, flavored malts jumped into the No. 2 position among beer subcategories in 2023 (behind premiums) as average store sales per month increased to $2,805. Imports, meanwhile, led by fast-growing brands like Modelo Especial, moved into the No. 3 spot, with average monthly sales of $2,696. Those trends largely continued into 2024. “Consumers continue to seek flavor variety and indulgence with beer,” explained Risk. “The biggest themes in flavor are hard teas, with sales of over $1 billion in c-stores last year, a 14% increase, and chelada flavors, now worth $761 million a year.” Nick Rogers, retail merchandising manager at The Markets at Tiger Mart, with 10 stores in Virginia, agrees that hard teas continue to be popular. While White Claw is the chain’s top-selling flavored malt beverage, “we sell a ton of Twisted Tea, in both 12-packs and 6-packs,” the retailer said.
The still tiny non-alcoholic beer subcategory also bears watching. Driven by consumer efforts at healthier lifestyles and a wave of new products from major
CATEGORY CLOSE-UP BEER
beer marketers and craft brewers, non-alcoholic beers are gaining in sales and awareness. While overall beer sales per store, per month have tracked fairly consistently for the last four years, non-alcoholic beer sales have risen each year at a healthy clip. In July 2024, the subcategory reached average per-store sales of $80.
CATEGORY WORKHORSE
Singles remain the category workhorse in the convenience channel, growing at a 10% compound annual growth rate over the last five years, according to A-B InBev. “Singles deliver 33% of dollar sales while driving 52% of beer trips and over 60% of units,” reported Merlo. Moreover, singles packages are a huge transaction and traffic driver for c-stores, added Risk, with around seven million beer singles sold each day in the c-store channel last year.
At the Tiger Mart outlets, the strength of singles stands out as the biggest beer trend, Rogers noted, while large packs are experiencing a downturn. With recent beer price hikes, “consumers are leaning into singles for daily consumption” and forgoing purchases of larger beer packs, the retailer explained. And within the singles segment, beers with high ABV levels are performing best, as consumers seek “more bang for their buck,” Rogers said. In fact, thanks to the margin growth on singles, beer sales at The Markets at Tiger Mart increased last year, the retailer reported, and he expects that situation to continue in 2025.
Beer singles have been performing so well at the chain that Tiger Mart is actively working to devote more space to the packages in an effort to boost days of supply, including the removal of some larger pack sizes to accommodate. Most of the stores dedicate two cooler doors to singles, “but we’re trying to get to three,” Rogers noted. To promote singles sales, the chain offers two-for deals on the packages, which helps “drive unit growth,” he said.
A Toast to Convenience
When it comes to liquor and wine, single-serve prepackaged cocktails remain all the rage in c-stores.
The liquor category joined beer in seeing a slight decline in sales in convenience stores last year, while wine appeared to buck the downward trend. The good news is that most of the excitement for the liquor and wine categories in c-stores these days is largely for emerging subcategories that are ideal for the convenience consumer.
Average store sales per month for liquor increased nearly 3% in 2023 to $7,114, according to the NACS State of the Industry (SOI) Report® of 2023 Data. But for the nine months ended September 2024, CSX data shows average monthly sales largely lagged those of 2023. Average sales per month for wine, meanwhile, jumped almost 17% in 2023 to a still modest $1,434, and through the first three quarters of last year, category sales trends closely tracked those from the year prior, according to CSX.
Wine and liquor marketers, along with c-store operators, note that it’s products like prepared cocktails and wine coolers/wine cocktails that are performing best in the channel. Indeed, coolers/wine cocktails jumped ahead of table/ varietal wine as the top subcategory in c-stores in 2023, according to the SOI Report. “Wine-based cocktails and coolers have been the craze for the last several years [as] emerging flavored wines have been entering the market and bring an interesting trend to the category,” said Laura Derba, senior vice president of retail operations at Global Partners LP. As such, alternative vessels, such as tetra paks, pouches and cups, have also been trending, the retailer noted.
Future Proof Brands’ Beatbox, packaged in 500 ml resealable tetra paks, nearly doubled its sales in c-stores last year, Phil Jamison, executive vice president, reported. “The convenience channel has been the No. 1 growth driver for us,” said Jamison, noting that Beatbox is sold at retailers that include 7-Eleven, Circle K and QuikTrip. He believes that products like Beatbox, which appeals to new legal-aged consumers, “can help expand the wine category for c-stores.”
Similarly, prepared spirits-based cocktails are proving a good fit for c-stores. “There’s no doubt RTDs are dominating sales, and there’s no sign their popularity will wane anytime soon” as consumers continue to be on the lookout for new flavors, remarked Herb Smith, vice president, customer development at Gallo, which is the marketer of the High Noon brand. Indeed, High Noon will soon launch a vodka-based hard tea variant, he noted. Among other prepared cocktails, Surfside is gaining at a quick pace. Launched just a few years ago, the brand is now available at Wawa, 7-Eleven, Circle K, RaceTrac and Sheetz, among other retailers, said Clement Pappas, CEO at Stateside Brands. “Surfside lends itself to the c-store environment,” Pappas said. “It’s a ready-to-drink product in a can that fits the beer occasion.”
While prepared cocktails have commonly been available in multipacks, singles are quickly gaining share. “Complex cocktails can be highly incremental via singles,” said Greg Merlo, vice president, category leadership, at Anheuser-Busch InBev, which markets the Cutwater and Nutrl brands. Pappas added that just as c-stores promote two-fors on beer, similar deals are effective on canned cocktails. Pointing to the low-calorie, low-alcohol attributes of brands like Surfside that are typically priced at a 20-25% premium to beer, he said that with canned cocktails, “There’s opportunity for c-stores to increase sales and profit.”
CSX, the engine behind category metrics and NACS State of the Industry data, provides current and customizable tools for financial and operational reporting and analysis in the convenience industry. Retailers can measure their company by any of the myriad metrics generated via our live database. Contact Chris Rapanick at (703) 518–4253 or crapanick@convenience. org for a complimentary executive walkthrough.
Both Risk and Merlo encourage c-store operators to carve out ample space for beer singles. “Best-in-class retailers have at least one-third of beer cooler space dedicated to singles to be able to have the inventory on the fastest-moving SKUs, expanded assortment on flavors like hard tea and spiked lemonades and the core domestic brands,” the Molson Coors executive said. While singles were just behind 12-packs in dollar value last year, they’re expected to overtake the larger package this year, Risk reported. “Retailers should ensure they have adequate space dedicated to singles, executing multibuys, and a clear pricing strategy, along with ice bins in high-traffic areas,” he advised.
SEASONAL SURGE
Interestingly, some convenience retailers report that beer multipacks are more prominent in their stores than singles. “Thirty-packs are our big seller, as we promote them at the state minimum price,” said Doug Smith, co-owner of Mt. Top Convenience in Thomas, West Virginia. Similarly, at Millwood Market in Millwood, New York, multipacks of brands like Coors Light, Budweiser, Corona Extra and Modelo Especial outsell
singles, according to general manager Frank Cala.
He noted that sales of the packages can be somewhat weather contingent. “If it’s nice out, everyone wants beer,” the retailer said. “If it’s not nice out, they don’t want it.”
With sales of some $7.5 billion in c-stores last year, 12-packs remained the No. 1 pack size on a dollar basis, Risk noted. At an average price of $16.88, 12-packs “offer high velocity and drive revenue through the register,” the beer executive said. He recommends that retailers position 12-packs mid-height in the cooler with “clear price signage,” with 18-packs in the well. For c-stores with beer caves, stacks of 12-, 18-, 24-, and 30-packs help retailers prepare for the “weekend stock-up trip,” Risk said. Executives at Molson Coors and A-B InBev have additional advice for c-stores to aid them in building category sales. Risk and Merlo both note the importance of cold beer for the channel. According to the Molson Coors executive, about 95% of all beer purchased in c-stores is cold, so refrigerated beer must be clearly priced and supported with regular promotional activity. Merlo added that proprietary A-B InBev
Beer Subcategory Data
Same-Firm Sample, Per Store, Per Month
research on alcohol trip missions has found that beer singles align with the “pit-stop essential” mission, “a routine and auto-pilot trip where the shopper purchases items for short-term personal consumption.” Multipacks, meanwhile, fall into the “alcohol grab-and-go” trip, a less frequent trip but one where shoppers are purchasing products to share in a social setting. “Retailers looking to win this trip … need to prioritize ample cold space for the total beer category across doors and caves,” Merlo said.
Risk agrees that beer caves can provide a great value for c-stores. “Beer caves see high conversion rates from consumers who step through the doors,” he remarked, but low awareness of the cave and low comfort in visiting the cave can be challenges. He recommends “highly visible entrances and exits, clear lighting, and minimal signage in the beer cave door to help increase larger purchasing and consumer satisfaction.”
MEANINGFUL MERCHANDISING
Both Risk and Merlo also see value in merchandising beer outside of the traditional beer cooler and beer section of the store. Noting that c-stores see around 165 million transactions a day, the Molson Coors executive encourages opera-
“If it’s nice out, everyone wants beer. If it’s not nice out, they don’t want it.”
Source: NACS State of the Industry Report ® of 2023 Data
CATEGORY CLOSE-UP BEER
tors to use ice bins and table-top coolers, and to merchandise beer near food to-go sections, where legal. “Shoppers in c-stores tend to make their trips quick, going straight for their product of choice and typically prioritizing the cold box,” said Merlo. “Ensuring that you retain these existing customers by executing category fundamentals should be the top priority. For stores that offer foodservice, place in-store activation near both the food and beverage categories to increase alcohol and food association and promote cross shopping.”
ADVERTISER INDEX
Contact Information
ADD Systems 71 www.addsys.com
Altria Group Distribution Company Inside Front Cover AGDCTradeRelations@Altria.com www.altria.com www.tobaccoissues.com
Apter Industries, Inc. 86 (800) 441-7146 www.apterindustries.com
BIC Corporation 17 www.us.bic.com/en_us
Black Buffalo Inc. 27 www.Blackbuffalo.com
The Boston Beer Company Back Cover www.bostonbeer.com
With effective merchandising, the proper brand and package selection for each individual store, and mindfulness toward keeping the shelves stocked, c-store operators can position themselves well in fighting back against languishing beer sales in 2025.
Terri Allan is a New Jersey-based freelance writer, specializing in the beverage industry. She can be reached at terri4beer@aol.com.
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Xcaliber International 55 (888) 4-XCALIBER www.xcaliberinternational.com
The Increased Importance of OTP
It’s a fact of life that every retailer understands: Cigarettes are experiencing a steady decline but remain a vital traffic driver. Other tobacco products (OTP) are picking up some of the slack, but what exactly the backbar will look like in five or 10 years is unknown.
According to the NACS State of the Industry Report® of 2023 Data, cigarettes accounted for 20.3% of in-store sales and OTP accounted for 7.3%. Data from NIQ tells
a similar story: Cigarettes and OTP combined made up 34% of inside sales in 2024, with cigarettes accounting for 24.2% of that total while OTP claimed 9.9%.
Four years ago, NIQ data showed cigarettes and OTP contributing 38% to total inside sales.
According to NIQ, when it comes to unit sales, cigarettes claimed 10.7% of unit shares and OTP claimed 8.1% in 2024, for a combined 18.8%, down from 21% in 2021.
Will OTP units top cigarette units in the near future?
