If you have visited a Maverik, you know our stores are a little different: We are Adventure’s First Stop. We strive to be fun, a bit irreverent and, as our theme suggests, adventurous.
But like many retailers, we have a number of older, smaller stores in our total of 265 locations. Over time, the smaller stores have come to look cluttered as we’ve tried to merchandise most of the items we sell, regardless of a store’s space or size.
Despite being only half the size, our small, 2,200-square-foot stores typically had all of the programs (e.g., frozen yogurt), all of the display units and 85% of the SKUs of our new, 4,600-square-foot stores. In one legacy store, we found 15 shippers. In another, with help from a well-meaning vendor, there were 29 clip strips hanging from gondolas (and almost every other place imaginable). Our favorite example was when we moved a display that blocked the view of the customer service area, and one employee said, “Don’t move that—it’s my ‘protection.’ ”
It was an adventure, but not the kind of adventure or thrilling shopping experience we want to provide to our customers.
Origins of the Concept
Great operators always look for ways to improve their performance. So in January, Maverik decided to take a fresh look at and develop a better concept for our 109 small stores. While the project began with an objective of “fixing” our small stores, it ultimately led us to something much more powerful.
We’re glad to say the development process was neither top down nor bottom up. Rather, it was “middle out.” It involved a cross-functional team from operations, merchandising, real estate, marketing and customer insights. The process began with team site visits at several of our old stores (dating as far back as 1980), looking at each store from our customers’ perspective, beginning with what was seen from the first step into the store. This helped the team see and feel the overall “clutter” issue, recognize some root causes and, most important, discover that we suffered from a lack of product focus.
Put simply, our product selection and merchandising needed to communicate to customers what we stand for—what makes us different.
Next, we conducted a weeklong team workshop, facilitated by David Brewster, a longtime consultant well known in our channel. The workshop began with a discussion of the 80-20 rule, which became the guiding principle throughout the rest of the work we did. (See sidebar on p. 92.) Using POP capabilities, we reviewed sales and inventory patterns to pinpoint what customers were buying and when. These “learnings” led to the development and application of a Maverik-specific 80-20 rule for determining what products we wanted to stand for—what products our customers should quickly see when they enter a Maverik. We created a merchandising vision statement and established guiding principles to support that vision.
CONTINUED: Maverik's Vision
Our Vision
We prepared a clear vision with a set of guiding principles:
- We blaze the trail and feed your adventure with the Maverik experience and food you crave!
- We are driven. We are disciplined. We are Adventure’s First Stop!
Accompanying this statement are four simple but important guiding principles:
▶ Clean & Clear
▶ Safe & Welcome
▶ Simple & Easy
▶ The Maverik Experience makes us unique.
From February to April, we undertook inventory editing to de-clutter the stores: widening aisles, lowering gondola heights, designing new alignments and highlighting the critical products we chose to stand for. This resulted in reducing (eliminating) poor sellers and redundant products, then creatively broadening best-selling SKUs (and derivatives), particularly in our handmade Fresch foodservice program’s inventory.
Admittedly, there were some cultural challenges to overcome. Even for the project team, which saw firsthand our store clutter and created the vision, it was hard to kill some products we had sold for a long time, such as DVDs. Our shared vision for the stores was critical in overcoming these challenges. It provided the working team a common view and language to come back to as we evaluated each product in the store (e.g., fishing bait, chip displays).
Next we developed a new layout concept for the small stores to highlight our critical products, provide a great shopping experience and enable operational support. This quickly led to our next steps of setting goals and putting together an action plan for implementation.
Implementing Our Strategy
Initial implementation began in May with building a full-size small-store mock-up in a warehouse, using plywood. This allowed us to see how our paper ideas played out in the real world, to get input from our operations team, and to easily make modifications. Seeing the concept “live” led to several refinements, including larger landing areas for coffee and fountain, changes in gondola size, and an improved food prep and sales area.
After several iterations, we were ready for a live test in Maverik stores. But this was also where we faced the next set of cultural challenges: getting the rest of our people on board with the concept. We particularly needed to overcome a long-held belief that more is more—that if we removed SKUs or programs from our stores, we would simply lose those sales.
First, we had our merchandising teams visit several of our old stores, looking at them from the same customer perspective as the project team. We met and discussed their observations, and we shared our vision and guiding principles. This helped generate excitement among most of the team. We selected 23 test stores; we liked the new concept so much we included some of our larger Maverik stores in the test as well. We selected reset teams and went to work setting our test stores during the middle of the night. This was a significant effort during June and July, especially at the older stores, where floors under gondolas often needed heavy cleaning. But the reset team made the test stores looks great.
CONTINUED: Early and Projected Results
Early and Projected Results
The results have been amazing, with more openness, better circulation, less clutter and clearer sight lines to our critical products. Feedback from customers was immediate. They loved how the “new” stores looked and felt. We knew we had hit on a big idea based on the reaction of our operations team. When store directors saw the test stores, they were excited, asking when we would come and “fix” their stores. This created buy-in from all levels of staff and enthusiasm from our executive team.
Danielle Mattiussi, Maverik’s COO, had this to say about the changes: “I am thrilled with the collaborative process we went through as a multidisciplinary team to design our new store layout. From an operational standpoint, we participated at a deeper level than we ever have in terms of operational rhythm. We can spend less time focused on ‘us’ and more time focused on customers.”
Early results through mid-August on the resetting of 23 stores have been successful, including cleaner spaces, more rational SKU levels based on store sales, greater focus on best sellers, better visual and physical circulation, more customer space and better service operations. While it’s still early in the test, sales results in our test stores are positive. The reset has also allowed greater visibility to (and development of) fresh-food preparation and our critical beverage categories such as fountain and coffee.
Our next step at the small stores is to remodel them with brand image enhancements such as new floors, skylights and Maverik branding and fixtures to highlight our fresh food Bonfire Grill. It will also include enhancements to the food prep area to improve ergonomics and speed of service.
We will also begin to implement the 80-20 merchandising principles to lower gondola height, improve sight lines and improve customer circulation at all of our stores. Our 80-20 adventure is creating an awesome shopping experience for Maverik customers—making all of our stores Adventure’s First Stop.
We’re just seven months into this program, and we’d love for you to visit our stores and share in our adventure.
100% 80-20
While the concept of the 80-20 rule is not new, its specific Maverik interpretation focuses on rationalizing in-store SKUs, customer perspectives and featured merchandising layout. Our interpretation has helped Maverik develop a path of promise and reason for foodservice.
Using facts and data, we know:
▶ About 75% of our in-store SKUs are immediately consumable.
▶ About 80% of sales come from 20% of the offer.
▶ About 20% of sales come from 80% of the offer.
Thus:
▶ Keep the best 20%.
▶ Eliminate the worst 20% and use its space for improved circulation and service.
▶ Eliminate the next worst 20% and use its space for product innovation.
▶ Eliminate the next worst 20% and use its space to double the impact of the top 20%.
▶ Refine the marginal 20% to support the best and for things tradition demands we keep.
This results in 20% fewer SKUs and 20% more space. Now 50% of SKUs are traditional best sellers; 30% are new product innovation; and are 20% marginal but necessary products, continually being refined.
We will continually track results using POS data and analysis and make adjustments periodically and as appropriate.
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