
Varish Goyal, CEO of Loop Neighborhood Markets, Fremont, California, spoke at the Conexxus conference in Tucson, Arizona, this week about the challenges and solutions that the convenience-store chain seeks. These areas of improvement include customer loyalty and retention, inventory management, operational efficiencies, customer experience and security and shrink.
Vintners Distributors, which owns Loop Neighborhood Market, is No. 54 on CSP’s 2024 Top 202 ranking of U.S. convenience-store chains by store count.
Customer Loyalty and Retention
Understanding why customers want to visit Loop is step one, Goyal said, and then it can strategize how to get customers there more.
Enhancing the loyalty program, which has one million active users, is a goal for the chain, he said.
“If you look at the average transaction size of a loyalty customer in our organization, it's $11.03, and for non-loyalty customers, it’s $4.83… So not only do we want to move customers from being a non-loyal customer to a loyalty member, but we also want to get that one-time-a-month customer to two-to-three times a month,” he said.
He’s also focused on improving loyalty offerings, getting more personal with communications, using the latest technology to see what promotions resonate with the consumer and driving specific customer actions.
Inventory management
Loop is looking for ways to not only ensure that product is in stock but to also have the right amount of product, he said.
“Average inventory for our stores is [worth] about $180,000,” Goyal said. “Multiply that by 140 stores, and that leads to a very large number. So how do we think about improving that?”
Goyal said that he’s learned that just because a store has the inventory doesn't mean it's on the shelf. He questioned how the chain could ensure that stores follow through with planograms and that the product is where it needs to be.
Operations
Goyal also brought up improving operational efficiencies through optimizing labor.
Loop’s average starting hourly rate is $16.50, he said. Last year, the chain was 5% over budget for its usage of labor hours.
That’s why Loop is assessing how to have labor at the right times to ensure that it’s properly staffed for the peak times.
This optimization has included a focus on automation for checkout, maintenance and restocking.
Customer Experience
Customer experience is how c-stores can stand out, Goyal said.
“We all sell the same stuff—how do you differentiate? You're going to differentiate through the consumer experience,” he said.
Loop is looking at in-store technology, such as SEO and mobile payments, plus changing the layouts of our stores to make them interesting.
“How many of you have the situation where a customer comes in, is unhappy, leaves, never comes back and you don't know about it?”
Goyal wants to figure out ways to capture that information through surveying or other technology so that teams can adjust and improve to be better prepared for the next time that consumer comes.
Security and Shrink
Finally, security and shrink are not only about losing product, it’s about the safety of employees, he said.
“We want to make sure that our teams go home the way they came. We want to minimize theft, and we want to improve physical security,” Goyal said.
That might be with smart surveillance, anti-theft technologies or better training materials.
“These are the things that we're looking for to help us make sure that our employees are safe and have a good environment for them to be working in every day,” he said.
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