In a retail landscape where sleeker designs and fresh prototypes are unfurled nearly every week, proclaiming a makeover would hardly be news. But when a historic company such as Wawa Inc.—widely considered to have some of the best-looking locations in the convenience industry—announces its first major remodel program in its 50-year history, committing to upgrading about 40 legacy and older fuel stores in 2015 alone, “news” seems something of an understatement.
We want customers to be confident that all of our stores, old and new, will consistently be regarded as best-in-class food retailers and restaurants,” says Wawa president and CEO Chris Gheysens. “Our remodel program introduces new products and improves efficiencies, [but] also helps us engage with our customers in the most meaningful ways through a combination of new technologies and areas all designed to create more ‘human’ connection points in our stores.”
While each individual location remodel will take only three to five weeks, the Wawa, Pa.-based retailer estimates the remodel initiative, announced in February 2015, will last into 2018.
This initiative isn’t merely about the individual customer experience at a given store. Rather, it’s about unifying that experience across Wawa’s entire network of 680 locations. Whether you’re walking into the grand opening of a Florida site or stopping by a Philadelphia store that has been around for half a century, the quality look and feel will be the same.
To appreciate the process, Wawa granted CSP exclusive access to the “whys” behind the Wawa Remodel Program, what will and won’t change in the upgraded stores and a sneak peek into what we can expect from the retailer moving forward.
Click here to view a before-and-after Wawa store-design slideshow.
Foodservice Forward
It’s no surprise that when CSP asked Michelle Walsh, Wawa’s director of retail implementation, about the rationale behind the remodeling, foodservice was a major component. Simply put, she says, minor upgrades are no longer enough to satisfy consumer demand.
“As our business has grown on the foodservice side, we have made small, incremental changes,” she says. “It is now time to make major changes.”
The need for major upgrades, both to layouts and equipment, is somewhat relative to the age of the stores. As Walsh puts it, “Stores we built in 1985 were not designed to do the business we’re doing today.”
For a chain that frequently describes its stores as “restaurants that sell gas, not a gas station selling food,” there is a need to compete—not with other c-stores, but with Chipotle, Panera and the long line of other stellar fast-casual restaurants. To do so, Walsh believes all locations must update and innovate in meaningful ways, something that’s significantly more challenging in the older locations. This means working with fixed spaces and retrofitting them in a way that gives the store a new experience with the tools customers—and store associates—expect from a cutting-edge operator.
To be fair, even Wawa’s most dated legacy stores easily surpass the stereotypical image many consumers hold of a dingy, dirty gas station, thanks in part to the retailer’s historic roots in dairy and foodservice. Is this kind of investment really necessary?
“Walking into a ‘legacy’ Wawa and a new Wawa were quite different experiences,” says Gheysens, who succeeded Howard Stoeckel nearly three years ago as CEO. “It’s important for us to have a consistent offer, service and image across our chain, which required us to make this investment in our existing stores.”
CONTINUED: Brand Consistency
Brand Consistency
What are Wawa’s big changes? Well, because a picture is supposedly worth a thousand words, we’ll save you all that reading and let you see for yourself through an expansive array of before and after photos showcasing what’s being added—and cut—as part of the redesign process.
The overarching theme, though, is one of brand consistency. “In the past, we’ve done minimal exterior changes and done a heck of a lot of changing inside,” Walsh says. “If we really want to attract new customers or some of our existing customers, we need to improve our drive-by visuals.”
This means all Wawa stores will feature the company’s most recent logo and what Walsh describes as a revitalized fuel island with the latest graphics and stone columns. Inside, every site will host Coca-Cola Freestyle machines and offer hand-spun milkshakes, along with additional space for growing foodservice and coffee programs.
“We’re trying to make these changes in the resets to be ready not only to better serve what we’re doing today, but also be open to the next two or three things that are coming down the pipeline,” Walsh says.
This strategy embraces the excitement about where Wawa’s going without losing the brand’s storied history, she says.
“We’re taking some of our older stores that are the heart of where we began and making them look fresh and exciting like our new stores, without taking away the culture that is Wawa,” Walsh says. “We’re making a kind of promise to customers that they’ll have the same experience that they are accustomed to.”
The More Things Change ...
Maintaining the heart of the Wawa experience means there are aspects that will not change through the remodel. The company’s already efficient checkout process will remain the same (albeit with upgrades to some of the equipment), Hoagiefest isn’t going anywhere and, perhaps most important, neither are the store associates. Wawa has committed to keeping employees on during the remodel process by temporarily moving them to other locations.
“It’s very important to maintain our commitment to our associates and keep their lives consistent during this process,” Walsh says. “It’s also important to retain the great talent that’s in our stores.”
Store workers are actually selling the remodel themselves, sporting hard hats before locations temporarily close. “Our store associates have told me directly they feel an elevated sense of pride in working in such a beautifully remodeled store,” says Gheysens. “This results in stronger engagement and, ultimately, better service to our customers: a wonderful indirect benefit.
“This is an unprecedented strategy for Wawa,” he says. “It’s a massive undertaking and requires the work of many departments, as well as our store teams and the addition of dozens of new roles to accomplish.
“I’m in awe of what they’ve accomplished so far, so fast, and the plans they have to maintain that momentum."
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