Inventive car wash operators find faithful ’companions’ in pet owners wanting to pamper their pups. Most dog owners would associate the word “loyal” with their furry, four-legged friends. And retailers—specifically those with car washes—are hoping they can make the same association with all types of pet owners. While dog washes came into vogue in 2003 [...]
Looking to rediscover a long-lost childhood toy and pick up a new roller grill at half the cost? Point your mouse to eBay.com Only five weeks elapsed from the day Raymond Hall decided to open his own restaurant to the day he had all the equipment he needed to operate his Riverside Deli in in [...]
Farm Crest Milk Stores gives its dairy doors the royal treatment. While some retailers skim by with a few facings of milk, Farm Crest serves its customer base of ’diggers’ with no fewer than five doors of all-natural dairy products. Denver’s Farm Crest stores compete in today’s modern convenience retailing arena by employing a 1950s-style [...]
Irving Oil’s Mainway stores make way for BLUECANOE, an uncommon concept driven by best-in-class service, an intense focus on fresh foods and a unique sense of humor. People don’t pay much attention to washroom signs. But at IrvingOil’s new Bluecanoe stores, the signs are tough to ignore. Tim Guen, senior brand manager for the Portsmouth, [...]
Irving Oil developed the ’Irving Promise’ as a guide to reinforce the importance of doing whatever it takes to simplify the lives of its customers throughout its network, including its newly reimaged Bluecanoe stores (see Making Over Mainway, p. 18). Irving Oil developed the “Irving Promise” as a guide to reinforce theimportance of doing whatever [...]
Lawsuits and fraud investigations targeting the soon-to-be embattled insurance industry have retailers reconsidering the coverage they pay for and from whom they buy it. Until it became the subject of billion-dollar fraud investigations,the mere mention of “insurance” would cause many retailers’ eyes to glaze overwith disinterest. But today, with criminal charges pending and millions of [...]
A gourmet sandwich program gives Kwik Chek added food sales and additional menu items without adding labor. For a company whose foodservice strategy started out as “fry it, box it and hope they buy it,” Kwik Chek Food Stores (Bonham, TX) has come a long way. About 12 years ago Kwik Chek realized it had [...]
Any fresh chicken program requires dedication, but see how a little ingenuity earned these retailers recognition and, oh yeah, thousands of dollars in chicken sales per week. By Kate Quackenbush, Managing Editor Despite their obvious size differences, 170-store Fas Mart Convenience Stores,23-store Johnson Oil and single-store operator One Stop Convenience Store allhave one thing in [...]
Innovation in candy, gum and mints creates big opportunities and even bigger margins for space-challenged category managers. Consumers appear to be shying away from ’intense’ or ’extreme’ mints in favor of flavors. Convenience retailers should expect some volatility when it comes tofamously unpredictable categories like tobacco and gasoline. But candy? Sweet,innocent candy? In the past [...]
Digital advertising networks boost the top line by funneling traffic from the great outdoors to inside the store. How to consistently transform gas customers into insidethe-store customersremains one of the great mysteries of our time. Retailers have tried a batteryof techniques— instore promotions with banners, advertisements blastingfrom overhead speakers, static ads on pumptoppers and streaming [...]
Eric Dean remembers walking into a store as a child with a note from his mother saying, “Please sell my son a pack of Pall Malls for me.” Things have changed a lot since then. Retailers have become much more responsible, for instance, by taking greater precautions to ensure that tobacco products don’t fall into [...]
Pilot Travel Centers adapts to its growth by streamlining its payroll and human resources systems. Necessity is indeed the mother of invention. As Pilot Travel Centers grew to 50 c-stores and 262 travel centers in 40 states with 14,000 employees, it became imperative for the company to streamline its payroll and human resources processes. Explosive [...]
Are you boring your associates right out the door? Trim turnover by keeping employees stimulated. Which item on the following list of job benefits is most important when it comes to keeping great convenience store employees on the payroll? Money Recognition Respect Interesting Work If you answered money, recognition or respect, you’re dead wrong. Although [...]
Anchored by Starbucks and other powerful food brands, Canadian Tire’s ’Q’ concept could have a dramatic effect on the retailing landscape north of the border. Canadian Tire Petroleum has sold gasoline since 1958, but even the company’s president will admit that its traditional convenience store offer has been less than imaginativeuntil recently. Canadian Tire Petroleum’s [...]
This natural descendant of the c-store intends to offer everything from lottery tickets and liquor to groceries and fast foodall in a drive-thru format. Stephen Beardsley wants to out-convenience the c-store industry. Beardsley is president of AutoCart LLC (Las Cruces, NM), a company that plans on building a $13 million to $18 million “Drive-Thru Supercenter” [...]