NEW ORLEANS -- The industry's best marketers are giving much-needed attention to a few of the underserved passengers riding shotgun in Bubba's rusty, old pickup truck.
Teens, boomer females and Hispanics, after all, have already begun to affect how convenience retailers do business, said industry experts in New Orleans during the State of Consumers closing general session at the 2007 NACS State of the Industry Summit in Partnership with CSP.
Kids today get' touchscreens; they like computers, said Scott Hartman, president of Rutter's [image-nocss] Farm Stores, York, Pa., alluding to his 50-store chain's drive to implement touchscreen order points at the deli counter to attract more younger customers. They believe computers have a better chance of getting their order right than people do. You're giving them control of the ordering.
Giving up some control, he said, might cause some uneasiness but should also help retailers reap greater dividends in the form of increased sales and higher customer counts. Other innovations implemented by Rutter's to attract more teens include faster fuel pumpsthe company spent $100,000 to make sure it offered customers the fastest-flowing pumps, at 10 gallons per minute, and supported it with a comprehensive ad campaignand a refurbished coffee bar that enables customers to dress up their dispensed beverages with whipped cream, sprinkles, syrups and other add-ins. The latter has been especially helpful in attracting female teens.
Woman of all ages, however, are becoming increasingly important to today's convenience retailer. Females part of the baby-boomer generationthose born between 1946 and 1964are at the peak of their income potential, have extremely high disposable income and seek new things and experiences with the wide eyes of a child, according to Mary Brown, author of the recently published BOOM: Marketing to the Ultimate Power ConsumerThe Baby Boomer Woman.
In the not-so-distant past, no one would have suggested that middle-aged women were trendsettersbut boomer women should not be ignored, she said, adding that by 2020, the number of persons aged 55 to 74 will swell by nearly 75%. The majority of women say the older they get, the more likely they are to try new things. They're just as likely to trade brands as teenagers.
Baby boomers share a commonality with the teens that make up Generation Y, or people born after 1979: Each group exceeds 70 million people. But the one major difference [between boomers and members of Gen Y], Brown said, is that the boomers have the jobs and the bucks.
[Pictured (left to right): David Portalatin, The NPD Group, Mary Brown, JWT Mature Market Group, Marie Quintana, PepsiCo Inc., Scott Hartman, CHR Corp. dba Rutters Farm Stores; for additional SOI coverage, see"Qualitative Research Also Critical" and "Like Coming Home" in this issue of CSP Daily News].
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