NEW YORK -- Earlier this year, the convenience channel saw a detailed-rich performance summary that showed last year as a good one for the industry, but one fraught with ominous clouds hovering under the headings of excessive credit-card fees, creeping utilities and lethargic fuel margins.
That was 2006 and the event called the NACS State of the Industry Summit in partnership with CSP. In the first peek at 2007 performance, the convenience sector continues to confront the same challenges. At the same time, a first-quarter barometer shows some healthy [image-nocss] signs.
In an exclusive report produced by CSX, the month-to-month benchmarking specialists recently acquired by NACS, first-quarter results of 2007 are outpacing the year-ago period by more than 5%. Most notably, fuel margins and in-store sales are up. But so are the normal culprits on the expenditure side.
At the same time, according to both CSX and the industry's largest wholesaler, McLane Co. Inc., some of the in-store categories -- notably cigarettes and foodservice -- are showing new and renewed opportunity.
We're definitely seeing some positive signs to believe that 2007 will be a good year for the c-store industry, CSX's Ben Meyer told CSP Daily News. Will it be the best year? Too soon to tell, but there are some obstacles we'll need to overcome.
To see how you're performing against the industry for Q1 2007, register today for tomorrow's How's Business? CSPNetwork CyberConference. Meyer will be joined by McLane vice president of marketing Roger Grogman and Chris Rebello of U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co., who will examine consumer shifts to moist-smokeless tobacco. To register today, click here.
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.