The Convenience Store Shopping Experience

Convenience store shoppers are far less likely to make impulse purchases than consumers shopping in other retail channels.According to Meyers Research Center's Cross-Channel Shopping 2009 study, only 15% of c-store shoppers made an unplanned purchase during their most recent trip. That percentage is substantially lower than that found at nearly all other food and beverage channels, including supermarkets (56%) and mass merchants (39%).The relatively low incidence of impulse buys is largely caused by the inherent nature of the channel, which is designed to provide a quick shopping option for consumers who typically are traveling from one destination to another and need to pick up one specific item on the way. That fact has led some in the industry to refer to its basic merchandising imperative as "Smokes and Cokes.""For a small format, the c-store exhibits the highest proportion of shoppers focused on planned purchases only, or what might be called 'tunnel vision shoppers,'” explains Lois Seidl, vice president of Meyers and author of the study. "Speed is part of the objective in choosing these stores, and shoppers want to get in and out quickly. This adds a challenge to the [brand marketer] whose strategy is to be an impulse item rather than a destination item."However, the low impulse levels may also be caused by relatively poor marketing and merchandising activity within the channel, which historically has been characterized by cramped, cluttered spaces, overly high prices in many product categories, and a counter-productive amount of P-O-P materials. One supporting piece of evidence for that theory is the fact that 7-Eleven -- which has done more than any c-store chain to transform its stores into legitimate shopping destinations -- apparently attracts significantly more impulse purchases than the rest of the channel: 22%. (See chart at right.)And 7-Eleven is far and away the most dominant player in the channel, with 32% of respondents identifying the chain as the c-store they shop most often, and an additional 19% saying they occasionally shop there. Alimentation Couche-Tard's Circle K ranked second, with 8% of respondents citing it as the store most frequently shopped and 15% claiming to visit on occasion. On the Run (Exxon/Mobil), Wawa and ampm/Arco rounded out the top five.Of course, 7-Eleven is also the most ubiquitous chain, encompassing more than 6,300 stores. In comparison, Circle K has 3,900. Wawa, on the other hand, has approximately 570 locations, suggesting that the independent Pennsylvania chain enjoys relatively strong levels of brand awareness and customer loyalty -- especially in comparison with such larger chains as On the Run, ampm or Speedway SuperAmerica. (See chart at right.)Speaking of "Smokes and Cokes," despite the best efforts of 7-Eleven and other chains to broaden their offerings, cold drinks, gas and cigarettes combine to form the primary impetus for 87% of all c-store trips, according to the study. Gas was the strongest driver, cited by 35% of respondents as the reason for their most recent trip, followed by cigarettes at 30%. Cold drinks was third at 22%, although the category is far more likely to be shopped secondarily than the other two. (See chart at right.)However, 7-Eleven is less reliant on gas and cigarettes than its channel peers. Those categories were "shopped" significantly less often at the chain than at other c-store outlets. (See chart at right.) Meanwhile, 7-Eleven shoppers were significantly more likely to shop not only for cold drinks, but for hot drinks, snack foods, grocery products and, especially, "food for a meal."Overall consumer penetration for the channel is still fairly low, with 45% of respondents in the study claiming that they "never shop" at a c-store and only 21% stating that they visit a store more than once per week. Perhaps more significantly, both of those figures represent "small but unfavorable" declines compared with Meyers' 2006 study, which suggests that the channel is losing both shoppers and trips, according to Seidl.Trends in the smoking category, where steadily increasing federal and state taxes have led some smokers to quit and others to seek less expensive retail options, may have had an impact on these traffic numbers. In addition, the study was fielded in fall 2008, after skyrocketing gasoline prices had trained some consumers to reduce their fuel consumption.

The Convenience Store Shopping Experience

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