C-store operators burning the midnight oil thinking of ways to increase their business may have inadvertently stumbled upon their answer. While late night has grown into an identifiable daypart on its own, too many retailers either haven’t yet recognized it as such or simply don’t have the traffic to warrant promoting it. But for those…
Meeting the Growing Foodservice Demand
This is what happens: Dad breaks to one side of the store to choose a sandwich from the Hot Spot, which he complements with a cup of hot coffee and a bag of chips. Mom heads for the cappuccino dispenser, then works her way to a fresh salad kept cool in a temperature-controlled center-island…
How Foodservice Impacts Profits
Dennis Peters has no complaints about the proprietary fresh chicken program at two of his 24 Friendship Foods stores in Ohio. It’s popular, it’s profitable and it’s been a proven concept for the past 12 years. Well, maybe there’s one complaint. It’s a little too fresh. Not “peck-you-on-the-hand-when-you-grab-it” fresh, but certainly fresh enough to see…
C-Stores Make Pizza Time
ore than a century ago, Italian peddlers would walk up and down the cobblestones street of New York, Chicago and Philadelphia selling pizza from metal drums they carried on their backs. Then pizzerias started opening in and around major cities in the 1900s. Eventually chain pizza deliveries like Little Caesars, Pizza Hut and Domino’s began…
Spicing Up the Roller Grill
Thanks to a surge of new products focused on ethnic diversity, the roller grill—the original anchor for most convenience store hot food programs—is hotter than ever before. "Customers automatically associate c-stores and roller grills. It’s been a source of great sales for us," said Scott Huggins, a marketing specialist for San Antonio-based Tesoro Petroleum Corp.…
Identifying More Effective Profit-Building Strategies
“In a business like cigars, where unit volume is growing 10% plus year-over-year, emerging strategic thinking in convenience retail suggests that retailers can grow even faster by employing a “price-for-volume” strategy for key products.” David Bishop, partner, Willard Bishop This summer, we examined how convenience retailers could manage the cigar category differently to realize above-market…
Satisfying Hunger and Thirst
Anyone who’s ever tried to satisfy an urge to snack with a bag of salty chips knows that you have to have a drink to do it right. That, of course, is the basis of cross-marketing: linking the desire for one product to a perceived need for another—and offering customers cost-saving deals that combine their…
Homer Simpson? Hardly!
No one sells food that is both fresh and convenient in the U.S., sniffed a retailing analyst quoted by the London Economist last year. “The typical American convenience store consumer is Homer Simpson.” Oh, really? Tell that to the hundreds of customers who stood in line waiting for giant British food retailer Tesco’s first Fresh…
Betting on the Franchise
7-Eleven Timeline 7-Eleven Inc. began almost 81 years ago when a Dallas ice dock operator decided to add milk, eggs and bread in response to his customers’ needs. The company’s first expansion outside Texas was into Florida. The retailer entered the franchising arena in 1964 with the acquisition of Speedee Mart, a chain of franchised…
grab go and come back for more
New Stuffins from Sara Lee and Jimmy Dean are taking handheld foods to a new level of taste and convenience. Foodservice in the c-store has fast become a desirablesegment in the eyes of the consumer. Because of that, operatorsare left with the challenge of providing a tasty, satisfyingmeal without sacrificing the speed and convenience thatcustomers…