OAK BROOK, Ill. -- On any number of frontsfrom foodservice to beveragesretailers are expressing optimism for the coming year. In its annual Outlook Survey, which will come out in its complete form this month, CSP magazine found that most responding retailers expected the business climate for 2007 to remain the same (40.8%) or see some improvement (47.2%).
Many retailers based their opinions on 2006, which in terms of past the Outlook Survey results, showed a slight uptick from the year before. [This] has been a good year for us, said Doug Deweese, CEO [image-nocss] of Super Stop!, a 42-store chain out of Meridian, Miss. [Hurricane] Katrina had an impact here, so there's just mega construction and spending in Mississippi and Alabama.
Riding what Deweese calls construction activity galore he is optimistic about his business going into 2007. With the construction going on, that means construction workers and that's who our customer is. We're meeting their needs and we foresee that continuing through next year as people continue to replace and build new things.
With regards to the Outlook Survey, 125 respondents replied to an online push, which CSP sent out in third week of October.
For 2006, Wade Bohn, partner and general manager of the four-store chain Jay's Market in Las Vegas, said the energy category just skyrocketed. He said his highest-selling retail item in the cooler is an energy drink. And with energy-drink margins outpacing most of the cooler and additional pay-by-space programs with four distributors, he decided to allocate an entire cooler door to the category.
[Pay-by-space programs are an option] for us as retailers that was not available in the past. Bohn said. Pay-for-space among energy [distributors] has a huge growth [potential]. These guys are coming to the table with progressive marketing [plans] for product in our outlets. It's been great.
On a different front, operators overwhelmingly cited foodservice (48%) as the profit center they hoped to add to or change in 2007, followed by car wash (21.6%), coffee (18.4%), fountain (18.4%) and prepaid (18.4%). Survey respondents could pick more than one category.
For complete results of the Outlook Survey, watch out for the December issue of CSP magazine.
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