WAWA, Pa. -- Wawa Inc. is known for its foodservice and coffee, and it does pretty well with other convenience store standardscigarettes, sodas and snacksas well. But the c-store chain is turning greater attention to a commodity that it didn't sell in its early days: gasoline.
Right now, all new stores we have planned for 2006 will have gas, David Yeager, senior director of store operations for Wawa in New Jersey, told the Burlington County Times. Yeager said 30 fuel-selling Wawas are proposed.
Wawa, Pa.-based Wawa has [image-nocss] stores in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. It began selling gas in 1996 at a store in Delaware. Since then, more and more of the pumped-up Wawasdubbed Super Wawas by the publichave been built, according to the newspaper report. Company officials shun the Super Wawa nickname, preferring to simply call the bigger stores Wawas with gas. Lori Bruce, a spokesperson for Wawa, acknowledged the nickname, but said she did not know the origin.
Yeager said Wawas with gas generally have a 5,400-sq.-ft. store and an eight-pump gasoline island. The older stores without gasoline are generally about 3,000 square feet. Yeager would not disclose the construction costs for the newer stores. He said the company will not close all of its smaller stores as the gasoline-selling versions come on line. The company has 546 stores, 181 with gasoline.
Yeager said focus groups conducted in the 1990s showed that consumers liked the convenience of buying coffee, a hoagie or other foodand gasolineall in one stop. That focus on convenience is not unique to Wawa, according to Jeff Lenard, a spokesperson for the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS). It's a theme running through a lot of business strategies these days, Lenard told the newspaper.
For example, home-improvement giant The Home Depot announced in January that it would open four stores with gasoline in Tennessee this year. If all goes well, the company said, it could open 300 more. Nationally, about 80% of c-stores sell gasoline, said Lenard.
I think Wawa is looking to the model that a lot of other stores are looking at, he added. Gas gets the customer into the store.
Wawa officials would not discuss company sales figures. A report for NACS said the retailer had revenue of $2.8 billion in 2004. The convenience-store industry had sales of about $395 billion in 2004.
Whatever the changes in retail trends, Wawa will continue to evolve, Yeager said. We are always doing customer research, he said. Change is a big thing. You've got to change with the needs and wants of the consumer.Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.