Ideas 2 Go, a favorite among NACS Show attendees, was bursting with suggestions for ensuring one's survival through reinvention and improved profitability. In rapid succession, the pre-produced session detailed strategies for reducing credit-card fees, transforming stores into "destinations rather than emergency stops," as one retailer interviewed for [image-nocss] the taped session suggested, and finding new categories to supplement those that might one day disappear.
Ideas came from multinational players, large regional chains and small retailers alike. Executives from retailers such as Power Mart Corp, Oak Brook, Ill., and Shipley Fuels Marketing LLC, York, Pa., for example, explained how cash discounts and alternative forms of payment have helped soften the scourge of credit-card interchange fees.
It was a familiar yet welcome message. Jay Ricker, president of Ricker Oil Co., Anderson, Ind., introduced the session by underscoring the "depressing" amount of money retailers have had to forfeit in the form of interchange fees. Behind him on stage scrolled a quickly escalating number that exceeded $22 million, representing the fees retailers paid to credit-card companies in the past 24 hours alone, according to NACS estimates.
Strategies for "going green" pervaded the Ideas 2 Go session as they have the NACS Show itself. Architects extolled the benefits of white reflective roofs, light-emitting-diode technology and energy-efficient cooler systems, while retailers spoke of solar panels and open-air stores that require no artificial climate control.
"You can be green and make money," said Sam Odeh, CEO of Power Mart, who implemented energy-saving skylights, biodiesel and other environmentally friendly components at his newest store in the Chicago suburbs.
Out west, Las Vegas-based retailer Green Valley Grocery installed a water-reclamation system that enables its car wash to reclaim 90% of its water. Though the system came at a considerable cost$20,000deploying it freed up the retailer from having to pay exorbitant fees to the county for excessive water use.
Also highlighted were ways to improve store performance through customer service and good hiring practices. Chet Cadieux, president and CEO of QuikTrip Corp., Tulsa, Okla., explained during the session that his company places tremendous importance on choosing the right people to staff its stores. "We stink at a lot of things," he said, "but we're pretty good at picking people."
The company hires less than 2% of job applicants; the thinking is that if every person on the store team is the "right kind of person"meaning one who makes good decisions and excels in customer servicepatrons will notice and respond with their business. QuikTrip employees are paid well above the industry average and are rewarded handsomely for significant workplace anniversaries. "If you have the best possible people and you take care of them," Cadieux said, "they're going to take care of the customer and everything else will take care of itself."
The session's focus then shifted to creating an image and personality for one's stores. Brad Call, executive vice president of Maverik Inc., North Salt Lake, Utah, detailed his company's evolution into "Adventure's First Stop," which is the identity adopted by each store. Locations feature unique action-based imagery, in-store murals and other interior and exterior design elements that exude entertainment and adventure. But the branding initiative applies to much more than Maverik's stores. Company tanker trucks, which Call described as traveling billboards, also carry the Adventure's First Stop theme. "Why put a stripe on [a tanker truck] when you can tell a story?" he said. "We don't think about marketing; we think about image."
Many retailers featured in the 40-minute Ideas 2 Go video spoke of a forward march into foodservice. California c-stores run by Famima Corp., a U.S.-based arm of Japanese c-store chain FamilyMart Co., do as much as 40% of their in-store sales in foodservice, featuring items such as sushi, sandwiches and highly unique "steamy buns," which are doughy rolls filled with meat.
QuikTrip has relied on inventive grass-roots marketing to promote its nascent but rapidly growing foodservice offering, much of which is provided by QT Kitchens, the company's commissary division. QuikTrip stores do much sampling, including dropping off food items to office buildings and radio stations to maximize exposure.
In the Northeast, York, Pa.-based Rutter's Farm Stores has focused on made-to-order foods that can be prepared quickly. Rutter's vice president of foodservice Jerry Weiner said his company targets "everything to be produced in four minutes or less." Newly added wok-prepared meals, for example, can be made in three minutes and 20 seconds.
Arcadia, Okla.-based Pops LC, meanwhile, operates one of the nation's most distinctive fuel-marketing sites in Pops 66. The store has become a destination because of its design, quality food and the fact that it sells more than 500 SKUs of soft drink. Customers have come to see the store as a soda shop and restaurant that just so happens to sell gasoline, rather than the other way around, according to Marty Doepke, general manager of Pops 66. "We've had people call and make reservations for a convenience store if you can believe that," he said. "You've got to have a niche and you've got to be unique if you're going to stand out."ideas2goMembers 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.