More. That’s what convenience store customers can expect to see of private-label brands–and what convenience store operators need to do in order to make those brands successful. The costs are too low, opportunities to build brand equity and loyalty too high, quality is rising too quickly and the benefits are too numerous for retailers with…
Private Label Case Study: Tesco
Jim Hertel, the senior vice president of retail consultant Willard Bishop, spotlights international retailer Tesco PLC’s Fresh & Easy concept, which at presstime had been rolled into eight stores in Phoenix, with 26 more planned. Hertel noted that Tesco’s use of private label brands "turns a lot of conventional wisdom upside down. Many food retailers…
Kum & Go Introduces Private-Label Wines
Kum & Go L.C., operator of more than 430 convenience stores in 12 states, introduced Napa Creek Cabernet Sauvignon and Sea Ridge Merlot wines to its long list of private-label offerings. The wines are sold exclusively at Kum & Go stores in Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska. Kum & Go set out last year to provide…
It’s All About New
Frequent new product launches have become de rigueur in the world of retailing, with customers expecting new product introductions on a regular basis. “Convenience customers love new items,” said Bill Tencza, senior category manager at Quick Chek, a chain with more than 100 stores in New Jersey and Southern New York. “And our customers look…
Getting Back to Beer
America’s changing demographic will continue to add new contours to the beer category, and that has some operators optimistic that beer could experience strong spring and summer selling seasons. The major breweries are expected to introduce products that target health-conscious consumers. For example, SABMiller this month will begin test-marketing its Miller Lite Brewers Collection, consisting…
Making It in the Marketplace
Driving business with new products is hardly a novel idea, but it’s also one that convenience store retailers rarely use to their advantage, said David Bishop, a partner with research and consulting firm Willard Bishop in Barrington, Ill. When retailers actively participate in the process of bringing a new product to the marketplace by helping…
Michelada, Anyone?
Chelada, Anheuser-Busch’s new Clamato and beer beverage, isn’t really new at all. A variation of a beverage called Michelada, it belongs to a genre of drinks known in Spanish as cerveza preparada, which means prepared beer—a drink category that’s been around since at least the 1940’s in Mexico. One version of Chelada’s origins is that…
Pivotal Year for Beer
What’s brewing in the beer category? A combination of higher prices, smaller crops, tighter dollars and expanded ethnic offerings may well make 2008 a memorable one for convenience store operators. A variety of forces are pushing and pulling the beer category in several directions. For instance, the higher prices of items like cigarettes and gasoline…
Building New Relationships
Anyone who’s been in the industry as long as Dennis Lane is more than supremely qualified to help other retailers cope successfully with the changing c-store landscape. Lane—who was elected last November to head the 2,000-member National Coalition of 7-Eleven Franchise Owners Association after serving for the past several years as vice chair of merchandising…
Wells’ Dairy Sells Milk Plant
Wells’ Dairy Inc., the Le Mars, Iowa-based manufacturer of frozen dairy products, reached a deal to sell its fluid dairy and cultured dairy facility in Le Mars, Iowa to Dean Foods Co. Terms were not disclosed. "Following extensive analysis, we have made a strategic decision to focus all of our efforts and resources on our…