Wouldn’t you just love to crawl into the mind of your convenience-store customers? Find out what they’re thinking, considering, mulling as they roam the aisles of your premises?
CSP, using data from its sister research arm, Chicago-based Technomic, and digital marketplace Upside, Washington, D.C., presents a deep dive into the c-store consumer’s journey—which begins before the customer has even entered the c-store.
“It’s likely when they're pulling into the convenience store, they’re thinking about what’s on their to-do list,” said Donna Hood Crecca, Technomic principal. “And you know, that's really the key to convenience. That’s why these stores exist.”
More people are returning to work after the COVID-19 pandemic—“We’re at a point now where about eight in 10 convenience-store patrons said they’re commuting to their workplace at least a few days a week”—Crecca said. “That tells us that their schedules are hectic. Their time is a precious commodity.”
Technomic’s C-Store Consumer Market Brief for 2024’s fourth quarter shows 64% said they enter the convenience store “nearly every time or every time they come onto the lot for fuel or to charge their vehicle.”
Fuel patron conversion gradually increased in 2024, going from 54% in January 2024 to 64% in 2024’s fourth quarter, Crecca said. “It typically runs in the low/mid 50% range, though there are sometimes seasonal blips,” she said.
Once a customer is in a c-store, they’re gravitating toward food and beverage—particularly prepared beverages and then packaged beverages, and prepared and packaged food, Crecca said.
“It’s really food that brings them through the doors,” she says. “They’re thinking, ‘I got to fuel my vehicle. I got to fuel my body.’”
One-Stop Advantage
Understanding what a customer is thinking is the key driver to the c-store business because it’s really important to understand the consumer needs states—“what are they specifically looking to satisfy,” Crecca said. “And which needs state is the store best position to satisfy? Is it thirst? Is it hunger?”
The primary appeal of a convenience store is the ability for a consumer to multitask while there, Crecca said, adding that 75% of consumers prioritize the one-stop shopping available at convenience stores, “and that rises to 86% for consumers between 18 and 34.”
But Crecca adds that c-stores often fail in marketing this advantage. “Even subtly reminding the consumer we can solve for many of their needs in one stop and get them out the door in 5 minutes or less—often that’s kind of a miss.”
Dawn Boulanger, vice president of marketing at Nashville-based Tri Star Energy, which owns 194 stores under the Twice Daily, Sudden Service, Southern Traders and Little General c-stores and White Bison Coffee brands, said even if a smaller c-store chain cannot afford a lot of advertising or paid marketing, they should include relevant messaging on social media.
- Tri Star Energy/Twice Daily is No. 42 on CSP’s 2024 Top 202 ranking of U.S. c-store chains by store count.
“Make sure that if you have data on your specific customers, that you’re communicating to them about information you know is relevant,” she said.
Tri Star has insights on its loyalty customers, including what they buy, she adds, and subsequently sends them personalized messages.
Boulanger said with messaging, c-stores should target what the customer has purchased, not what the c-store would like them to buy.
Price Points
Consumers today will continue looking at “cost, price and the value piece of it,' Boulanger said.
Consequently, c-stores must highlight the categories, items and brands where they are competitive on price value.
“We need to take a hard look at how competitive are we, where can we win, where does the combination of time savings, one-stop shopping and an attractive price point elevate the value that’s going to bring them through the doors,” Crecca adds.
Tied to luring customers, Boulanger said, is using excellent photographs.
“One of the things we do is with our proprietary food is we use really beautiful, appetizing professional photography to try to get people to crave products,” she said.
“It’s a little bit of the way restaurants market,” she adds. “If you go to a QSR, typically there’s a poster up of something.”
Thought Process
Aside from food, Crecca said toward the end of 2024, there was an uptick in consumers buying tobacco products, lottery tickets and alcohol, the last helped by promotions and deals.
When they enter a c-store, consumers are thinking about what they need: tobacco products, coffee, bottled water, sandwich, paper towels and a phone charger, Crecca said.
Boulanger said tobacco still sells, but “in today’s world, they’re coming for more of the new modern oral products, like nicotine pouches.”
While a customer may have something in mind when they enter a store, they’re also open to suggestions, Crecca said.
“Consumers really understand that their neighborhood convenience stores’ offering can be reliable and also intriguing,” she adds. “I think it’s the kind of store that people go into and think, ‘I know that they’re going to have XYZ that I need, but I’ll keep eyes open because there might be something cool that I want.’”
In prepared beverages, “It’s all about reviving and refreshing drinks,” Crecca said.
“Energized beverages overall are on the rise.” —Dawn Boulanger, Tri Star Energy
“Think about coffee,” she said. “We’re seeing growth across hot, cold, iced and frozen coffee, and I think a lot of it is the caffeine, the energizing element of it but also the flavor and the indulgence piece and the refreshing piece.
“Energized beverages overall are on the rise,” she adds, such as refreshers with a caffeine boost or an “energy piece from something else like ginseng, guarana, something like that. Tea also is now seen as kind of an energizing source.”
Crecca expects that in 2025, “We’re going to see more complexity in prepared beverages, more texture, like boba, or layering—think about dirty sodas; they have that layering aspect.”
Boulanger said people are seeking healthier choices, such as gluten-free, vegan, “the types of products that fit their lifestyle and their needs; clean food, keto-friendly. People are using c-stores for more than just those traditional packaged goods. It’s an alternative to a restaurant, and so their expectation is that they have some of those options out there.”
At Tri Star, they lay out the store to encourage impulse buys, like by putting bags of chips next to the sandwich cooler.
Other areas retailers should be attentive to are checkout lines: “If you walk in in the morning and see a line of 20 people, that may deter you,” Boulanger said, noting the importance of proper staffing.
“Some people may think this is crazy, but in our higher-volume stores, we took lottery out because it just slowed down the process and you could watch people get really irritated,” she adds. “It wasn’t worth it. You don’t make that much money off of it.”
Their Generation
When addressing the consumer mindset, Crecca said, it’s important to examine it from the perspective of different generations. “The Gen. Z mindset is very different than the Gen. X mindset, than the boomers,” she said.
Younger consumers, such as millennials and Gen Zers, “see a lot of utility in the convenience channel. They like it and use it. It solves a lot of their problems,” Crecca said.
C-stores also provide solutions for older generations, but their needs are different, she said, adding that c-store retailers need to know the makeup of their customers and figure out what to offer them and how to sell and promote it.
Look at Loyalty
To get customers in the door from the pump or charger, c-stores can use tools such as personalized offers via loyalty apps—“especially if the offer is in connection to a fuel purchase,” which is very appealing to customers, Crecca said. Of particular use are loyalty programs that have geofencing capabilities.
“They know you’re driving by,” she said.
Retailers also should think about the basics of marketing on the forecourt, she said. “Speak to those key need states of the consumer,” Crecca said. Are they hungry? Thirsty? Is there an emergency need? It is dinner?
“You need to market against that and highlight the ability to quickly execute against the key need states in the four walls at a very accessible and attractive price,” she said.
While working on all this, retailers also should avoid clutter, she said.
“I can’t tell you how many c-stores I drive by and there’s so much clutter that my brain doesn’t even pick up on anything,” Crecca said. “There’s just too much.” An overload of signage might spur the consumer to disregard everything, she adds.
One other factor that Boulanger said remains really important is customer service, she said.
“Some people want that contactless [transaction], but at the end of the day, I think it is nice for somebody to walk in your store in the morning and somebody speaks to them,” she said. “You don’t know what’s going on with people, and so just to have that interaction is really important.”
What Data Has Value to You?
Data and insights are vital to anticipating consumers’ needs, Donna Hood Crecca, Technomic principal, said. C-store operators have “mounds” of data from purchases and loyalty programs, she said. “The key is identifying what data actually has value to your organization and what can you activate against. And by activating it, can you serve up really compelling promotions and offers?”
She adds, “Can you optimize the category to align with consumer demands and get ahead of the curve in terms of trends that become evident through the purchase data, through the loyalty data?”
At the same time, however, one cannot operate in a vacuum, she said. “You can’t only look at your own data. It’s really important to also analyze broader industry data to see if you are tracking with the industry—or is there white space—a place we’re not playing where there could be opportunity for our stores to build some incremental sales?”
Another piece to gain the edge is monitoring social media to identify what’s trending, what’s of interest to one’s core consumer and to the desired consumer.
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