Winners by Pillar
Speed and Convenience
Speed & Convenience is about delivering on the basics, how quick and easy it is for shoppers to choose you. While this is the least important pillar overall, it still accounts for a meaningful 10% of long-term results for convenience retailers.
Arco, Chevron, and BP take the top three spots in the pillar overall, based on being known for location convenience, hours, speed to get in and out.
Pillar Ranking & Scores
Top 3 in Select Levers within Pillar
Locations
Locations are convenient/ easy access
Opening Hours
I always open when I need it
Quick In & Out
I can get in and out quickly
In Stock
Always has items I'm looking for in-stock
+ Fast Meals
Pillar Performance for the C-Store Market Overall
The Table stakes Aren’t Going to Drive Superior Financials and Emotional Connection
To understand why Convenience and Speed is one of the least associated factors with relative outcomes among our C-Store landscape, it’s important to consider how the market as a whole is performing on Convenience and Speed, compared to how it is performing on other Pillars of the Customer Value Proposition.
In short, the C-Store competitive set is generally performing strong on attributes related to location and speed to shop, with relatively little competitive differentiation between C-Stores. Great location convenience and speed to shop is table stakes for the channel.
The chart above shows that, even for the worst performing retailer in the dataset, 72% of their customers tend to agree that the location is convenient and they can get in and out fast, while 90% agree for the best performing retailer. That is a spread of only 18 pts between best and worst performing retailer.
The middle 50% of retailers’ scores is represented by the height of the square shown between the max and min. Visually, you can see that the height of that square is relatively short, compared to other pillars. This indicates that the middle 50% of convenience store destinations huddle fairly close to each other in their perceptions.
With the convenience store sector adding more new locations in 2023 than any other retail format in the U.S. – 2,222, outpacing even dollar stores which boasted 1,368 new openings – this convenience saturation will only grow. The call to action here is for convenience stores to focus on those pillars where they can achieve differentiation, to drive longer-term, sustainable growth.