PITTSBURGH -- Giant Eagle has quietly accomplished what multinational retailer Tesco is trying to do with fanfare, flashbulbs and a fair amount of panic from would-be competitors: It has reinvented its version of the wheel.
Giant Eagle Inc., a Pittsburgh-based retailer with a storied history as an operator of traditional supermarkets, has hatched several iterations of modest-size stores with convenience, versatility and, most importantly, customer satisfaction at their core.
GetGo from Giant Eagle, a well-crafted convenience-store [image-nocss] concept complemented by a phalanx of multipump dispensers (MPDs), first surfaced in western Pennsylvania in 2003. Since then, the company has not slowed in its desire to serve the customer with new and different store formats. As vice president of fuels and c-store operations for Giant Eagle, Dan Pastor oversees the daily performance and sets the overall strategic vision for GetGo from Giant Eagle, with guidance from the Giant Eagle executive and senior management team.
I think one of the many things the industry can learn, but I'm not sure they all do, is that you can't view the competition as a traditional convenience-store operator or the oil companies, Pastor told CSP Daily News. You have to continually look outside the channel and understand that retail is changing and evolving with consumer expectations and need states.
He added, When we benchmark a programsay it's a food programwe're not looking at convenience stores; we look at Panera and Subway and what the fast-feeders are doing. We have to understand what the benchmark is and look at how we can become the best in that benchmark.
Prior to joining Giant Eagle, Pastor held the title of vice president of Crossroads Convenience LLC, which helped give birth to the GetGo concept, as well as numerous titles with Guttman Oil Co., for which he went to work in 1986. His experience has afforded him a unique, if not more refined, perspective on today's convenience retailing business.
Always start with the customer, not your own limitations or what your core competency is, he said. Giant Eagle, for example, is primarily in the grocery business, but we looked at how fuel could be part of that portfolio. That led to our popular fuelperks!' [loyalty] program, which has become a very important part of Giant Eagle today. Why aren't more c-stores out there looking at partnerships with other retailers outside their particular channel that might be able to help them within their business segment?
Added Pastor, This is a tremendous organization with a lot of resources relative to having a passion for the consumer. We never feel we have the right answer, and we're never satisfied. We're all about continuous improvement and how we can do it better. We're not hung up on, Now we've got it right'; our culture has never been like that. It's more like, How do we make it better, how do we change it, and how do we refine it?'.
Spawned from modest beginnings in 1918, Giant Eagle has pioneered several smaller formats and niche specialty stores: GetGo, Giant Eagle Market District and the GetGo Superette. Those stores complement a network of 156 corporate and 69 independently owned and operated supermarkets in Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
This business isn't about traditional convenience-store retailing anymore; think about it and how it's seen through the eyes of the consumer, Pastor said. Think more about need states,' where consumers are saying, How can I consolidate trips, and how can I get things done faster?' Some things the convenience-store industry does, it does very well, but there's a whole host of opportunities in things like banking services and joint-retailer programs where consumers can get rewards in one form or another because of their purchasing behaviors.
You have to start from the consumer and their needs states and where the opportunities lie and then create or craft programs that are going to add value for them. There are many people in the industry who do exactly that and other folks who haven't yet begun to think that way. Too often retailers think within their four walls, but sometimes the answer may lie outside of that window.
Look for more on Giant Eagle and its evolution with smaller-format stores in the June 2007 issue of CSP magazine.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.