The convenience-store industry is facing many challenges in the new year. Attracting and retaining talent, utilizing technology and combating declining store trips are just a few of the hurdles on retailers' minds in 2025.
Alimentation Couche-Tard is No. 2 on CSP's 2024 Top 202 ranking of convenience-store chains by size. EG America is No. 5. Global Partners is No. 21, GetGo is No. 29, Stinker Stores is No. 66 and Parker's Kitchen is No. 86.
CSP Daily News editors spoke with some of the top leaders in convenience to find out what they're facing. Here are their responses.
These answers have been edited for length and clarity.
Brandon Hofmann, Incoming CEO, Parker’s Kitchen
“Attracting and retaining talent is the biggest challenge facing the c-store industry. That is why people are one of our ‘Core Four’ tenets and why we’re focused on providing exceptional pay, opportunities for advancement, benefits, training and support for our team members. We believe that this focus on our team members differentiates us from our competitors and makes us truly the best place to work. We’ve received numerous ‘best places to work’ awards, including being named a 2024 USA TODAY Top Workplace.”
Lisa N’Chonon, CFO, EG America
“I think the biggest challenges are sometimes knowing what the customer wants and having the right story and proposition for the customer. It's changing. I think depending on [the] different areas of the country that you're in, people are struggling, and recognizing that and being there for your customers, your community, I feel like it's always going to be a challenge in the c-store industry. But particularly now, you could just even see it in the recent election. We're there in the communities, and we want to be there for our customers just the same.”
Nate Brazier, CEO and President, Stinker Stores
“I’ll stick to four: One, economic challenges: There will continue to be inflationary pressures on product costs as well as operating costs. In addition, consumers are seeing and will continue to see budget constraints. Although there have been interest rate cuts and sounds like more to come, consumer debt levels are still at all-time highs and will continue to reduce discretionary spending.
Two, digital disruption: Utilizing technology will continue to be crucial to optimize operations and enhancing the customer experience. Consumers expect a seamless shopping experience across online and in-store platforms, which requires the proper investments in apps, mobile ordering and delivery and other media to provide the experience that the consumer wants. This will be an ever-evolving challenge for us for a while.
Three, labor: Finding and keeping great talent is always a challenge and will be. Making sure that we are focused first on providing a Stinkin Awesome experience for our people is vital. Raising wage expectations, changing work preferences and legislative issues are some of the challenges we will navigate in the next year.
Four, changing consumer preferences: We need to stay ahead of the ever-changing consumer and rely on data to help us make decisions about our offerings. The way the consumer interacts with us has been and will continue to change, and we need to be able to provide that experience for them whether it’s online, in the app, in the store or at the forecourt. In addition, we see a heavy focus on food in our industry, and we are seeing that consumers are shifting to healthier options and are seeking it out. I believe this shift will intensify in 2025.”
Alex Miller, President and CEO, Alimentation Couche-Tard
“People are starved for time. They’re looking for convenience. They’re looking for speed. They’re looking for solutions. So I absolutely love our channel. I think what you see is everybody trying to get into our channel. So I love our space. I’m very glad to be in our space. I think we’ve got a very long runway in convenience. I think the world’s changing fast; faster technology is doing that, AI is doing that, and we’ll continue to do that. You have delivery and all the things that are happening around that. So you need to be eyes wide open and adapt. The good thing is that I love our scale, because our scale enables us to invest in these forms of tech that candidly single-store operators probably can’t right. So I think we just have to stay very focused on that, making sure we’re investing in the right places and adjusting to what the consumer wants and needs.”
Jac Moskalik, Vice President of Food Innovation and Strategy, Global Partners
“Labor continues to be a challenge, specifically in c-stores. I’m from supermarket, but I’ve never seen the labor shortage we’re seeing. And it’s a hard job, and so we have staffing issues. The other things that I see that are going to totally impact us by the end of 2025, I think eventually we’re going to start seeing inflation again. I think everybody’s preparing for it. And then all the articles are saying that travel is going to be at an all-time high, but they don’t think people are going to be stopping at gas stations as much as they did because they don’t have to fuel up as often. So, it’s just been very interesting. As [electric vehicles] expand, I’m very curious to see how that changes the shopping patterns. That’s why everybody invests in food, because of EV, but it’s definitely changed how people shop in convenience and travel in convenience.”
Terri Micklin, President, GetGo
“There are a lot of things going on right now. One is, if you look at some of the most recent studies, it would show that Americans on the whole are driving further using fewer gallons. So, as a result of just fuel efficiency that's happened throughout the car fleet, bringing on more and more electric vehicles, and all of those changes, you're finding that drivers don't need to stop as frequently. So, in and of itself, you're going to have a natural degradation of trips to the stores. And so one of the challenges is going to be, ‘How do you make the most of those experiences when the customer does come in to really attract them and make yourself a place where people want to stop?’ And we're seeing more and more companies invest in experiential opportunities as a result of that, with more show happening in the store. [The] naturally declining trip count is going to lead us to be a lot more innovative and how we capture the customers when we have the chance.”
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