A loyal convenience-store customer likely has two other stores they’re shopping at, Brian Post said.
“Which is fine, that’s human behavior, you go where it’s convenient… but I want them to make all their tobacco purchases when they’re at my store, so how do I get them to do that?” Post, senior category manager at Enmarket, asked tobacco retailers and suppliers at CSP’s Tobacco Plus Forum.
Post and Aubrey Thornock (pictured above), senior category manager at Maverik, shared what they find most important in managing a backbar.
- Maverik is No. 21 and Enmarket is No. 60 in CSP’s 2023 Top 202 ranking of U.S. c-store chains by total number of company-owned retail outlets.
One of Post’s strategies to make the customer choose to buy tobacco at one of Enmarket’s 130 stores instead of another place they shop is through promotions. There are two ways he goes about promotions: offering new item specials and “can you believe it” promotions, which seem too good to be true. A small investment can lead to increased sales in the future, he said.
Thornock leans heavily into loyalty offers at Maverik, which has about 800 c-stores with its recent acquisition of Kum & Go, Des Moines, Iowa. Salt Lake City-based Maverik recently added a fuel offer for tobacco purchases. In one example, loyalty customers who bought six tins of Altria’s On modern oral nicotine (MON) pouches could save 50 cents per call on fuel at their next fill-up.
The company had had similar promotions for packaged beverages and food, “So why not our categories?” Thornock said. “I understand they’re the most regulated, but if big tobacco’s funding it, why aren’t we doing it?”
Inside the store, Maverik updated its backbars by rationalizing SKUs. Thornock said the 2021 planogram for tobacco had MON in three places.
“With a growing segment like modern oral, you want that customer to be able to easily find the product they’re looking for,” Thornock said.
Her new backbar is more segmented by subcategory, so vapor, MST, MON and others are grouped together, making it easier to run advertisements and for customers to find, Thornock said.
Making space for new products and segments is more crucial than ever as flavor bans across the country create opportunities for new tobacco segments. Retailers need to prepare themselves for those flavored tobacco sales bans that have reached states like California and Massachusetts, Post said.
“It’s going to happen in other places, so what’s your plan?” Post said. “How are you going to approach that situation and turn out better on the other end versus the wait-and-see approach?”
Post (pictured below) turned to other categories that have products—like freeze-dried candy and non-alcohol beer—that he never expected to do well but are selling.
“Those are opportunities in other categories, and I think we need to think differently about what we’re doing,” he said. “I recently put in a 0% nicotine vape with no expectations, and I’ve been extremely happy with the performance of that. And that’s just one SKU.”
To make these changes, though, trust and good communication with store employees and vendors is key, the category managers said.
It’s easy for category managers to get comfortable sitting in the office, Post said. But visiting and communicating with conveniences stores to build trust with the people on the ground is one of the most important parts of managing the backbar.
Thornock said of her philosophy on vendor relationships: “I’m going to trust you until you give me a reason not to, and it’s really going to make a difference in how we work together.”