Don't get comfortable
C-stores do not necessarily own convenience. Consumers say drugstores and dollar stores can be just as convenient as a traditional c-store, Armour said. “Let’s not get caught thinking we are an insulated channel, because we are not,” he said. Instead, convenience is a mindset, and channel walls are being obliterated, he said.
When NACS met with e-commerce company Alibaba, which has sales seven times greater than Amazon on its best day, company representatives said that convenience lives online, and the domain of brick-and-mortar is all about the shopping experience.
“We have to be paddling to a future in which our stores deliver a compelling shopping experience, with as frictionless ordering and payment as possible,” Armour said.
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