LAS VEGAS --There is nothing new about the competitive retail environment. What is new is exactly who that competition is. With growing channels such as big-box, drug and dollar stores trying to take a bite out of the convenience store pie, how retailers approach these new challenges is an issue that is always top of mind.
"Everyone wants to sell more stuff," said Robert Forsyth, president of Belleville, Ill.-based Moto Inc., during the "Closing the Gap on Your Competition" educational session at the 2014 NACS Show in Las Vegas. "And they're attacking our industry because we sell a lot of stuff."
The competitive threats are vast, and many of those threats are within the convenience store industry itself. The first main group of competitors are strong regional fuel and c-store outfits like Kwik Trip and QuikTrip, he said. These retailers are inspiring teachers and terrifying opponents at the same time.
"We need to figure out how we can be more like these competitors … but if they move in down the street from you, you're in trouble," he said.
He admires the brand loyalty these retailers have engendered in their customers, and thinks the best way to compete with them is to fight fire with fire: "Their loyal customers are that emotionally bound up in that brand," but good customer service and engrained community involvement isn't just their game to win, he said.
Dollar stores are another obvious group making moves against the convenience store industry. And they are doing so with low, low pricing.
"When they move down the way, they exist on exceptionally low pricing strategies," Forsyth said.
And then there are drug stores: "They sell everything we do. They want the tobacco, the beer, the chips. They want everything."
"You can go on the offensive or the defensive," Forsyth continued. "But you need to do both."
One of his strategies to combat the industry's biggest competitors is to maintain a healthy product assortment: "I know many operators that don't readjust their product mixes often enough," he said.
He encouraged retailers to link up with supplier partners: "Our interests are parallel," he said. "They want to sell more stuff, and we want to sell more stuff."
The biggest tool in the convenience store arsenal, however, is the industry's unique ability to engage and grow within the communities they represent. Through philanthropic programs and other community building effort, Forsyth believes even the smallest retailer can build the brand loyalty of the KTs and the QTs of the world.
"Customers want to do business with a company that stands for something," he said. "It's our trump card."
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