Winsight’s Top 3 Convenience Retailing Trends
CHICAGO — In a year when convenience-store owners are walking a tightrope of slimmer gasoline margins and increasing competition, Winsight’s CSP convenience editors and its Technomic data team put their heads together to consider where c-store retail might land in 2017. Here’s your first peek at Winsight’s top 2017 Convenience Retailing Trends.
- Global is local. The industry is witnessing international players, such as Applegreen from Ireland, OXXO from Mexico and others from Central and South America, permeate U.S. borders. Meanwhile, Circle K is branching out into the rest of the world from its North American base, and 7-Eleven’s parent company is setting aggressive goals for its already-massive U.S. footprint. Expect the globalization movement to lead to unique retail innovation, as well as distinct challenges in attracting the foreign consumer.
- Big data gets predictive. Retailers and manufacturers alike will begin to get smarter about the vast pools of data at their fingertips, using it to forecast what will sell, when it will sell, to whom and exactly how much. It’s a practice already at work by retail and consumer packaged goods (CPGs) giants, and one that will soon trickle down to bleeding-edge c-store retailers.
- Services 2.0. Conventional c-store service amenities such as prepaid phone cards and check cashing, have made room for newer services that reflect greater retail disruption. Storage lockers, online ordering and product pickups for e-commerce purchases, key making, in-store bill pay and at-the-pump ordering are now in play at c-stores, which will increasingly employ new, unheard-of service platforms to get consumers out of their homes and into stores.
Watch for Wednesday’s CSP Daily News for the complete list of nine trends.