President Donald Trump’s administration has implemented tariffs, paused them, rescinded them and restarted them, giving convenience stores, along with many other industries, a serious case of whiplash.
On May 25, Trump said he would delay imposing a 50% tariff on all imports from the European Union until July 9, according to the New York Times, which made a timeline of the on-again, off-again tariffs. Then on June 4 his tariffs on steel and aluminum imports rose to 50% from 25%. This follows the sweeping tariffs that have already been imposed on China, Mexico, Canada and more countries.
Steve Morris, president of St. Paul, Minnesota-based Retail Management Inc., told CSP that tariffs have affected his stores in multiple ways. Morris' company handles the operations, marketing and accounting functions for any small-format retailer including convenience stores and truck stops, vape shops and liquor stores. Operations include staffing and supervising, product replenishment and ordering and vendor negotiation.
“From an internal standpoint, some suppliers are directly and indirectly impacted and are doing as expected in passing cost changes along,” Morris said. “I don’t hold out hope that if and when tariffs are reduced or removed, that those costs increases will be rescinded.”
The implications for retailers are far reaching, “with implications up and down the supply chain,” he said, ultimately affecting the cost of operating a c-store.
Morris, along with convenience stores and associations like Vintners Distributors, the Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association, Alimentation Couche-Tard and Murphy USA weigh in on what the fluctuating tariffs mean for business.
Spending Soft
Pervez Pir, president of retail at Fremont, California-based Vintners Distributors, which operates 48 Loop Neighborhood Marketplace convenience stores and 135 Shell gas stations, told CSP his stores have experienced an increase in coffee pricing due to tariffs—“and have been informed [from vendors] of others coming.”
Another price increase has been from Loop’s private label beer vendor for the aluminum, Pir added.
The biggest challenge of the fluctuating regulations are the “same for everyone,” Pir said, adding that the uncertainty of whether tariffs will hold or be rescinded makes it is difficult for the company to plan for the near future. “We don’t want to be bullish and then it changes, which keeps the cost where it is.”
Pir said general merchandise such as candy, cookies and crackers, private label and the aforementioned coffee are the categories being most affected by the tariffs.
To help combat this, Loop is leveraging loyalty by holding prices or creating deeper discounts for loyal customers if it has to raise prices on all other customers.
“This could help grow our loyalty base since they realize it is a compelling reason to join,” Pir said.
‘The larger impact is what it means for inflation and what it means for consumers that are already stretched and really struggling with disposable income.’
Alex Baloga, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association, Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, told CSP there is a whole host of items affected by the tariffs, including coffee, paper products, food and building supplies and equipment. The association represents more than 2,300 retail food stores, including convenience and grocery stores.
Baloga added that there is already serious competition in the retail food industry and consumers are very price sensitive.
“So that’s really the big concern is, ‘How do these tariffs obviously affect consumers and the businesses and folks that are price sensitive?’ Especially in an industry that is always trying to be competitive, and that competition is really fierce,” Baloga said.
Uncertain Summer
No one in economics or business likes uncertainty, Morris said.
“Not since the Nixon era have we seen stagflation, even into the early Reagan era, and so this generation of consumers hasn’t experienced the impacts,” he said. “The economic pressures and overwhelming lack of Congress and the federal government’s ability to handle, can lead to a very tepid summer season.”
This also means retailers are doing the same pull-backs, he said. “Nonessential R&M [repairs and maintenance] and spending in our cases is curtailed and is the prevailing direction for now," Morris said.
Regarding sales, Morris said he’s seeing sluggishness in the “indulgent” categories, while immediate-consumption food and beverage appear to be “holding well.”
“A continuation of previously declining categories such as home goods, paper, pet and cleaning, which can largely be purchased at better pricing than our industry, continue to struggle,” Morris said. “Additionally, what was a strong hope for continued success, strong margins and penny profit of alternative snacks such as jerky products, has slowed, despite ample product line extensions and SKU options available.”
With all this going on, Morris said he’s keeping an eye on overall economic trends.
“I’m watching borrowing rates,” he said. “As much as I’m encouraged by return-to-office policies and claw-back of trips, the ‘Danger Will Robinson’ feeling that has seeped into consumers is discouraging.”
Tuning Out
At the Dallas, Georgia-based Georgia Association of Convenience Stores, Angela Holland, president, told CSP that tariffs have had “no downstream effects other than pump parts. They are taking longer to get and more expensive.”
Some association members have started to tune out the tariff news due to its “off and on” nature, Holland said, while others are concerned about how it is affecting the overall economy and stock market.
So far, no particular c-store categories have been hurt, “But we are constantly monitoring the situation, and the uncertainty makes everyone a little nervous,” she said.
When asked what the association is watching, Holland said, “‘What are we not watching?’ is a better question. Everything trickles down to the community convenience store, whether it is fuel, parts, food, services. This industry provides several vital products that Americans cannot live comfortably without. Therefore, uncertainty impacts our customers, whether it is in the pricing structure or the simple fact that goods and services can’t be delivered.”
In the spring 2025 C-Store Foodservice Update from CSP sister research arm Technomic, Chicago, 44% said they are getting by-managing money carefully, 28% are struggling to make ends meet, 21% are living comfortably and 7% are well off.
The same report said tariffs present significant challenges for c-stores. In foodservice, Technomic highlighted challenge areas as proteins, produce, coffee, frozen items and packaging. In consumer-packaged goods: beer, packaged beverages, candy and gum, salty snacks and grocery items.
“Prices at the pump may rise due to tariff implementation,” the report said.
‘Big Unknown’
At Alimentation-Couche Tard, Laval, Quebec, which owns Circle K, Alex Miller, president and CEO, said on the company’s earning call March 19, “We’re pretty confident that tariffs are not going to have a big impact to our business. We source most of our products in our countries, in those local countries. And any tariff application would be the same across all retailers for us to experience that. So, we do not see a big impact from tariffs on our underlying business.”
Miller added, according to a transcript from financial services site AlphaSense, New York, “I think the larger impact is what it means for inflation and what it means for consumers that are already stretched and really struggling with disposable income. And that’s kind of the big unknown that we’ll be watching very closely.”
On El Dorado, Arkansas-based Murphy USA’s earnings call May 8, Andrew Clyde, president and CEO, said, “We’ve always said the Murphy USA business model is somewhat inflation-proof, recession-resistant and relatively immune to other periods of consumer weakness. We can now add tariff resistance to our lexicon.”
The company’s business model has proven durable and resilient against a wide-ranging variety of challenges over the last 12 years as a public company, Clyde said, according to an AlphaSense transcript.
‘You’d rather know what you're dealing with, even if it’s, you know, maybe not as good.’
“It speaks to serving value-oriented customers, products that are largely nondiscretionary with an EDLP [everyday low price] offer to a relatively simple but always evolving business model,” he said. “Our focus on making the business better has allowed us to deliver results and value to shareholders in almost any environment.”
Clyde added that one of the benefits “of the fuel product supply team is it does not stay out of equilibrium for long. Between recently announced refinery closures on the West Coast, the impact of tariffs on imported crude oil and products, we can expect the oversupplied environment to cycle back to a more balanced state in due course.”
Ultimately, Baloga of the Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association said he’d like to see the tariffs “as low as humanly possible or gone completely, if possible.”
“Keeping prices as low as possible is really our goal, so [tariffs] make it harder to do that,” Baloga said.
Consistency would also help.
“You'd rather know what you're dealing with, even if it’s, you know, maybe not as good,” he said, adding that he does see some positives in what Trump is trying to do to reset some regulatory and tax guidelines. “So I think definitely the changing back and forth, that is challenging. That makes it a challenging situation even more challenging.”
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