While LED lighting has helped many businesses reduce their carbon footprint, each retailer must decide if the endeavor is a worthy long-term investment. By Pat Pape, Contributing Editor. During holiday season 2011, the 74-foot Norway spruce in New York City’s Rockefeller Center was covered in 30,000 multicolored light-emitting diodes (LED). Those glowing decorations were an…
Emphasizing a Strong Breakfast Business
Given that the morning daypart is such a high-growth segment, it should be no surprise that the industry’s leading retailers are focusing a lot of effort on solidifying their offerings. By John Lofstock, Editor. Americans are more amenable to buying meals at convenience stores, but won’t budge when it comes to quality, price or convenience…
Mean Healthy Business
While some c-store operators are gingerly testing the waters of healthy lunch and dinner solutions, others have plunged right in as the tide of consumer demand moves steadily toward fresher fare. By Marilyn Odesser-Torpey, Associate Editor. With the opening of its latest store in Marshfield, Mass., Tedeschi Food Shops launched a new initiative that puts…
Designing a Winning OTP Strategy
Convenience stores have evolved from being a destination for cigarettes to a destination for tobacco products as a whole. By Joe Bush, Contributing Editor. It was inevitable that the conversation on convenience store cigar sales would shift eventually from rapid growth to supplier relations, category management and marketing. As cigarette regulations and prices and taxes…
Chocolate Sales Boost Confections
Despite the weak economy, consumers continue to indulge in candy. By Joe Bush, Contributing Editor. The confectionery retail market has grown across all trade channels, but convenience stores have outpaced the overall retail market. Iconic brands (Hershey, Nestlé, Mars) prowl the chocolate landscape and provide consumers an affordable indulgence in a bitter economy. According to…
Building Bottled Water Sales
New products and core beverages will always drive cold vault sales. Retailers have to know how to market them effectively to maximize profitability. By Howard Riell, Associate Editor. Bottled water sales continue to rise steadily, which is good news for overall packaged beverage sales in convenience stores. NACS reported recently that in the wake of…
PeopleMatter Secures $14 Million Financing
Focus on hourly workers in $2.5B market sets software company apart. PeopleMatter, provider of a talent management solution (TMS) specifically designed for hourly workforces in the service industry, announced today a $14-million Series C round of venture funding led by Morgenthaler Ventures. This financing will continue to accelerate PeopleMatter’s product-innovation and customer-acquisition strategies. Existing investors…
Buck’s Inc. Selling Chicago Convenience Stores
Both company-owned company-operated sites and company-owned dealer-operated locations are available for purchase. Buck’s Inc. is selling 62 properties located in the greater Chicago and St. Louis metropolitan areas by sealed bid sale. The St. Louis deadline (Feb. 22) has passed, but the Chicago bid deadline is set for March 8. NRC Realty & Capital…
The Evolution of Cash Management
Smart safes are getting smarter and so are the convenience store operators who use them. By Howard Riell, Associate Editor It’s all about the money, so handle it intelligently. Having a smart safe—and training employees to use it effectively—relieves a lot of the traditional headaches associated with handling cash, according to Los Angeles-based retail security…
A Simple Tobacco Fable
Alternative products are helping to shape the future of convenience store tobacco sets. By Lou Maiellano. Imagine, if you will, that European explorers land in Africa, North America or South America in the 14th, 15th or 16th centuries. Upon landing, these explorers find the inhabitants of these exotic new lands drinking a strange, energizing brew…