Leading convenience retailers and suppliers from around the globe gathered in London June 5-7 for the 2019 NACS Convenience Summit Europe (CSE) to network, share insights and hear from thought leaders on trends and pain points in convenience retailing.

As one NACS supplier leader noted on the sidelines, “convenience retailers are an information-thirsty group,” and CSE, Convenience Summit Asia, the U.S.-based NACS Show and the other events and resources NACS produces for its members “keep the conversation going throughout the year.”

The first two days of the summit focused on immersive sessions, panel discussions and networking, capped on day three by a walking tour of innovative London c-stores, grocers and eateries. 

Frank Gleeson, NACS 2018–19 chairman and president, Aramark Northern Europe, opened the summit by asking the 100-plus attendees to share what keeps them up at night. Disruption in the industry was top-of-mind, taking the form of competition from online retailers, the digitalization of business, mobile payments, a move away from plastics to more eco-friendly packaging—sometimes at the behest of local regulators—government regulations, loyalty programs that work, electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles, a shift toward fresh food retail, declining store foot traffic, consumer privacy, data security and the availability of a high-quality labor force.

“At my count there were 23 issues you raised,” Henry Armour, NACS president and CEO, said, following Gleeson’s open. Armour offered that he used to say that there were few unique issues across the industry worldwide, but now, “there are no unique issues worldwide.” Armour encouraged retailers to look at the challenges as opportunities, building “more flexible, more nimble” leadership teams to tackle them and sharing their stories with their customers.

The electric vehicle revolution, Armour said, “is a much more complex issue than people think it is. And yet, this thing is moving faster than everybody thought it would move.” He questioned the practicality of electric vehicles in areas of the United States like his home state of Wyoming, where temperatures in winter plummet to below zero Fahrenheit, which would affect how long batteries hold their charge.

If you’re doing something in sustainability, you better make sure that you’re telling your customers about it.

With a nod to the coming CSE sessions, Armour advised attendees to pay attention to the “increasing demand for social consciousness on the part of corporations.” As convenience retailers move into foodservice, “we’re competing against restaurants, and that’s a more hospitality-focused service,” Armour said. He urged c-stores to “create a compelling shopping experience,” no matter if and how you use digital tools to serve customers.

Asked what keeps him up at night for the industry, Armour said, “Labor. It’s the fundamental foundation that the industry needs to get right to compete.” The convenience retailing industry is unique, Armour said, because of its relationship with its customers. “The texture of that relationship and getting it right to me is the biggest issue. If you don’t build the business on people and interactions with people, I think you’re just a cat chasing its tail.”

He pointed to a first-time NACS Convenience Summit Europe who operates a single store in London, which Armour visited last year. “His store is not as shiny and bright and cool as others. But go in there at lunchtime and you see the most dedicated customers. It’s because his team interacts with and treats people like people.”

Trends in Online and Offline Retail

Mike Watkins, head of retailer and business insight, Nielsen, delved into global macro-trends among c-stores, from sourcing local and differentiating around fresh food to convenience and speed of frictionless checkout to healthy eating at a fair price. “Bigger is not necessarily better,” he said, noting that small stores account for 37% of global FMCG sales and 70% of all shopping trips.

In the session, the “Collision (or Integration?) of Online and Bricks-and-Mortar,” Watkins focused, in particular, on China’s booming c-store landscape. “You could say the East is rising in defining new retail,” he observed. Fresh food is important to Chinese consumers, especially seafood. And China is at the forefront of advanced payment technologies, with consumers paying for their purchases via mobile-phone apps, not credit cards or cash. E-commerce sales already account for 60% of grocery sales in China, he said.

“Convenience stores have a unique advantage,” he said, because “they can actually complement the e-commerce providers, which is a convenient place to collect packages and a convenient place to dine.”

Technology is not only changing how people discover products, but it also fundamentally changes what’s happening inside the store. “I do see that the online and convenience models have converged,” Watkins said. “There’s great potential for convenience stores to grow sales on the back of building customer loyalty and extending it to the online world.”

Self-Checkout Skips the Line

Making the checkout process quicker and easier to navigate for customers is a constant goal for convenience retailers, and many have adopted self-checkout capabilities in their stores. Executives with SPAR International and Reitan Convenience Denmark shared their experiences with attendees at Wednesday’s session on “The Many Dimensions of Self Checkouts–How New Technology Disrupts and Supports New Retail.” (Reitan Convenience Denmark is the 2019 NACS International Convenience Retailer of the Year, sponsored by Jack Link’s.)

Gary Harris, head of brand, SPAR International, shared the company’s university student-focused store concept, which has a decidedly fresh Gen Z look and feel that is unique to this format of stores in the company’s portfolio—and is cashless. “Obviously we’d all like to be Amazon Go,” Harris said. “Particularly for Western Europe, it’s a very high investment due to legacy [computer] systems.” Scan and go using a smartphone app is a move in that direction and is relatively easy to implement, Harris said.

Brightly colored signs with clever messages greet student shoppers at SPAR Netherlands University c-stores. The tone of voice is informal. One sign reads: “Eat here or we’ll both starve.” SPAR aims to “create a relationship and an experience with them,” Harris said. Social media is carried into the store, with signs inviting students to connect with CampusLife on Facebook and Twitter.

“Self-service is interwoven in the store as it is with these customers,” Harris said. Shoppers select grab-and-go items like salads, drinks and pastries, scan the items and pay for them with their smartphones using a mobile payment feature that’s part of the university store app. For shoppers who prefer paying by card, self-checkout pods are available, and a cashier is on hand for behind-the-counter cigarette sales.

SPAR has implemented various self-checkout options throughout its stores worldwide. In India, for instance, shoppers can check out using a mobile app on their smartphone, check out with a staff member via smartphone app, or go to a self-checkout kiosk to complete their purchase.

Sóren Birkstróm, CIO, and Jesper Østergaard, CEO, Reitan Convenience Denmark, shared how the company has implemented reversible-touchscreen checkout kiosks in its 7-Eleven stores in Sweden.

In front of the counter, customers can use the screens as self-checkout stations—or behind the counter a clerk can flip them around and use the same system in a more traditional checkout queue.

Convenience stores in most cases have limited floor space, and “Our solution is re-using the traditional point of sale (POS) unit located at the cashier line,” Birkstróm explained. All POS units are now always open and availed for our customers, with or without staff.”

Being socially responsible can be … a competitive advantage.

The units have freed up staff to focus on other things—and reduced checkout times for customers. “We had a lot of customers where we could see that speed was very important,” Birkstróm said, especially for hospital workers and students. There was an initial learning curve in terms of educating customers about the new self-checkout process, but they quickly caught on.

The next step might be adding a system that lets customers use their mobile phones to scan and go, Østergaard said. “We need to make sure we deliver a high level of customer service,” he said. “I get disappointed when I hear that we have too long lines and queues.”

Building Loyalty with Digital

Loyalty and rewards programs were debated in a panel discussion moderated by Mark Wohltmann, NACS Europe director. As a curtain-raiser, customer loyalty marketing guru Mike Atkin, founder of  Customer Strategy Network, offered his take on loyalty programs, starting with a heads up for the audience: “I’m going to be contentious when it comes to digitalization.” He said, “I believe 90% of programs around the world aren’t loyalty programs, they’re just rewards programs. Every company should have a customer strategy—a good, effective loyalty program should be a part of that.” Atkin affirmed, “Loyalty is a journey, not a destination.”

He challenged the idea that every customer wants to ring up their own purchases without face-to-face interaction with a shopkeeper. “Self-checkout—do we really want this? To me it’s a solution without a need. I’m not sure it’s the full answer,” he said.

Think of building relationships with your customers in much the same way as you have “relationships with friends because we like them,” Atkin said. “Build relationships with them; that’s what loyalty is all about.”

Rewards programs offer customers discounts for shopping with a particular retailer and don’t always work best to change customer behavior, while loyalty programs aim to turn regular customers into advocates or brand evangelists for the retailers they frequent. Winning customers’ trust is the key to building loyalty, no matter the platform, he said.

Atkin outlined the two sides of the loyalty equation—the transactional side and the emotional side. Customers trust retailers to have the range of products that they want, plus give them an enjoyable experience. “If you get that balance right, these people won’t just become loyal, they’ll become advocates.”

Part of building trust is to “understand the data that you’re collecting,” he said.” Data is digital; life is analog. We have kids, we move house, we go to school, we go on holiday. Tracking that lifestyle data is the point of difference. It helps you understand why that customer is valuable. Treat customers differently because none of us is the same. Treat them with respect. Serve them. Talk to them.”

Wohltmann asked the panel to share how many loyalty cards they carry.

Nick Chambers, U.K. managing director, Mobile Loyalty Technologies, and an expert in digital customer engagement said, “I use a lot of loyalty-based app programs and payments. In terms of cards, I have one card. A Nectar card. Even though I’m a mobile guy…I carry it. When I’m in the store, they remind me to use the card.” It’s an analog solution that works, he said.

Paula Thomas, loyalty marketing consultant, Liquid Barcodes, who is based in Dubai, shared that Emirates Skywards loyalty program is valuable because, “There are actual tangible benefits to me” as a frequent flier on the airline. In exchange for data on consumer purchasing behaviors, “I think it’s important to be clear about the benefits of the loyalty program,” Thomas said.

Atkin has lots of cards, including a Tesco loyalty card that he transfers his points to his daughter to treat his grandkids to “the cinema once a month and get a pizza afterward.”

Wohltmann asked the panel how to strike a balance between reducing bad friction—slow checkout times, for instance—and increasing good friction, which is about human interaction.

Chambers shared his experience of working with a hospitality provider to implement a mobile payments app so customers don’t have to wait for servers to ring up their bill. “The challenge is getting the servers to be advocates for the technology” because they think their “tips are going down.”

Getting both customer and employee buy-in is crucial in the convenience sector, as well, Chambers said. “I think promotion and communication are as strong as the reward offer. You need to be talking to your customers about this journey. I think Henry [Armour] made a good point about the narrative of the new retail environment and the need to bring customers along.”

Added Thomas, convenience retailing “is such a low engagement industry in so many ways. It’s almost like you have the most difficult job in loyalty in the world” because c-stores aren’t ringing up pricey sales like high-end retailers, which rank high in terms of consumer loyalty.

“The best programs in the world use technology…They use their imagination, their creativity.” She pointed to loyalty systems that recognize and reward consumers simply for using a linked payment card—no need for a separate loyalty card or app. Thomas enumerated some loyalty programs that she views as successful—Amazon Prime memberships, subscription programs, coffee programs. Cumberland Farms, for example, offers two cups of coffee a day for $25 a month in its Coffee Cup-Scription program. She urged retailers to get creative and bundle things customers buy every day.

Among Atkin’s standouts are Tesco, Nectar, American Airlines, American Express membership rewards and U.K.-based Boots. Chambers added Starbucks to the list.

Thomas said KFC’s game-based loyalty approach in China “blew my mind” because the QSR “realized if they didn’t self-disrupt, they would self-destruct. They really nailed understanding the segment of customer they’re going after. They identified gamers,” with the goal of “getting these gamers out of dark dingy bedrooms and into the restaurant and playing games in the store.”

There’s great potential for convenience stores to grow sales on the back of building customer loyalty and extending it to the online world.

Wohltmann asked Atkin to peer into the future—”Where are we heading?”

Atkin said, “The trend is very much that people get very excited about digital. I think the convenience industry is in a marvelous position because of where you are. You do get that customer interaction…and that interaction bodes well for customer loyalty. Not everyone is in a tearing hurry. It’s changing from being a product focus to a customer focus. Everyone’s looking for convenience. There’s a chance for you to talk to these people to start building a relationship to get them to buy just not a loaf of bread but other things.”

Chambers added, “It’s also a promise. You’re obligated to stick to that promise and deliver on the promise. The hard part is delivering on that promise time and time again…This needs to come through in terms of your relationship with your customer.”

Chambers sees four main trends in the loyalty space:

1. Card-linked marketing: basing offers on the spend from a credit card
2. E-receipts: linking the basket spend to digital advertising
3. Digital couponing: getting and redeeming coupons at the point of sale
4. Payment: linking the payment experience to loyalty.

Taking the conversation down to a granular level, Wohltmann asked the group to talk specifically about available technologies that underpin loyalty programs.

“There are a number of technology vendors in this room. They have great products,” Chambers responded. “For me it’s around the connected technology. How you deliver on the front end and connect to the back end? In terms of a frictionless solution, this connectivity needs to exist. I believe it doesn’t exist at the moment in terms of scale. Nobody’s really got this solution nailed.”

When choosing a technology vendor, Thomas said, “The single most important thing is talk to clients who are using that software. If you can talk to more people who’ve been down that path before the better. I’m a firm believer about sharing that information.”

China Melds Online and Offline Worlds

Matthew Brennan, managing director, China Channel, shared several case studies offering deeper insight into the Chinese convenience retail market. The market is changing quickly, and the boundaries between offline shopping and online shopping are disappearing. “There’s a lot of experimentation,” Brennan said.

Two huge conglomerates dominate the digital landscape in China: Alibaba Group, the e-commerce giant, and Tencent, the online games, social media and payments giant. “They’ve got their fingers in all different pies,” Brennan said. “They’re everywhere,” including holding investments in traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.

In explaining what “New Retail” looks like in China, Brennan quoted the chief technology officer of Hema Supermarkets: “The essence behind new retail is to apply the idea and technology of the internet to restructure people, products, and place in an all-around way—from the place of origin to the hands of consumers.”

Hema’s goal is to drive offline customers to shop online. Only about 40% of its sales are in-store, while 60% are online—people who’ve been to the store and order at home. The main target is to get to 85% of customers shopping online.

The company’s Freshippo store is a food offer plus experience center plus fulfillment center. Brennan called it “a poster child for what new retail means.” In-store, consumers place their orders, scan their purchases and pay for them via the Hema phone app. “They’re using the store as almost like user acquisition for their app to drive online traffic, to drive online sales,” Brennan said. “Really, they don’t want you in the store,” he said.

McDonald’s is a case study in digitalizing the customer experience in China. Customers can order via their phones and pay with the WeChat Pay app. “About 40 minutes after I’ve bought my Coke,” Brennan said, “they send me a customer service survey. If I do complete that I get a [QR code] coupon. I can store it directly in my WeChat app or share it with my friend.”

A new wave moving very fast in China is facial recognition technology. KFC customers can place a food order at a kiosk and pay using facial recognition technology.

Fast home delivery is now the industry standard in cities. Live within 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) of a store or restaurant, and customers can expect to receive their order in 30 minutes guaranteed.

QR codes are widely used in China—and credit cards and cash aren’t. At unmanned stores such as luckin coffee and BingoBox, customers use their smartphones to scan the matrix barcodes, verify their purchases and pay via apps. At Walmart China, shoppers scan item QR codes with their phones, pay and then show a clerk their QR code receipt. “Abuse of the system is very low,” Brennan said.

Brennan left attendees with a glimpse of the future in which retailers have dashboards full of data on consumer behaviors as they shop in brick-and-mortar stores—discerning their age, gender, mood, time they appeared in the store and the last time they visited. Live in-store heat maps and cameras hidden in shelving follow shoppers as they browse, recording which items catch their interest. “We’ve had this for years and years for online. Now we’re having it for offline,” Brennan said.

Mike Davis, NACS vice president, member services, asked Brennan what’s the takeaway for Europe?

“All of these things are coming for us,” Brennan said. “They’ll come in a different way,” depending on regulations, which “will be the big issue.” He shared that Chinese retailers are more interested in developments in India, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe than Western Europe.

Doing Well by Doing Good

Two sessions delved into how retailers are addressing consumer demand that businesses contribute to the greater good with a socially aware and environmentally sustainable mindset.

In the first, executives from three start-ups shared their stories of how starting with a good cause led to successful enterprises without compromising their missions.

“If you’re doing something in sustainability, you better make sure that you’re telling your customers about it,” said Nate Marsh, chief revenue officer, GreenPrint. The Atlanta, Georgia-based B2B environmental technology company helps brands reduce the negative effects of their environmental footprint by investing in tree-planting programs, renewable energy projects and carbon reduction programs, among others. A key component of GreenPrint’s business is helping its partners develop marketing and outreach campaigns to share their stories about their sustainability efforts.

“One of the biggest things we hear about in Europe is greenwashing,” Marsh said, in which corporate sustainability efforts are only window dressing. “How genuine is the program, or you just doing enough to make the claim?”

Sebastian Stricker is CEO and founder of Berlin, Germany-based share, a social consumer goods brand based on the one-plus-one concept: For every share product sold, a person in need receives an equivalent product—and consumers can enter a tracking code or scan a QR code to see what areas are benefiting from their socially minded purchase. Prior to starting share, Stricker founded a nonprofit, “ShareTheMeal,” a popular global fundraising app which feeds 50,000 people a day and is now run by the United Nations.

Stricker shared how his experience working with the United Nations World Food Programme shaped his understanding of how food is unequally distributed and the idea for his new venture. “There’s 20% more food in the world than could feed everyone. There’s about 10% of our population that suffers from acute hunger,” Stricker said.

Share’s first products were mineral water and hand soap, and the brand lineup has now grown to include about 20 products. “You buy a bottle of water from us, we will provide at least one day of drinking water for someone in need. For every snack bar you buy, someone else will get a meal.”

Paul Bethke is a social entrepreneur and founder of Hamburg-Germany-based Lemonaid, which sells a line of fair-trade soft drinks and teas made from 100% natural organic ingredients. Every bottle sold helps support the Lemonaid & ChariTea Foundation, which funds social projects in developing countries.

Growing up as a German citizen in Sri Lanka, Bethke said he recognized early on that he was more privileged than some of his classmates in his ability to travel internationally and benefit from parents who paid for his education. “As a result, I said I’m going to found a company, and use that company to support others.”

Although socially minded, the ventures still need to pay attention to the bottom line, Wohltmann of NACS pointed out. “Let’s not be fooled. You guys started companies, not charities,” he said.

Waste is the enemy, particularly food waste.

The panelists agreed. “I believe that being socially responsible can be … a competitive advantage,” Stricker said. “There is significant demand for social operations; it’s growing exponentially,” he said.

To Bethke, “If you sell a product, the product has to be attractive as a product,” he said.

Marsh added, “I think for us because GreenPrint is a B2B brand, we’re working with retailers on their behalf, so when we go out and form these program partnerships that we have, with 7-Eleven, for example, it is important that these are brands that people know in their communities, so when you layer on [a sustainability program], you have to demonstrate that this can create value for the retailer and also for the customer.”

Sustainability and Convenience

The tension between rising consumer calls to reduce plastics use and the realities of selling food and beverages in convenience retailing were at the forefront of a lively debate in the session, “Applying Purpose to Make a Difference: Finding Common Ground Between Sustainability and Convenience.”

Moderated by James Lowman, CEO of the U.K.-based Association of Convenience Stores, the panel featured Andrew Thornton, owner of London-based Thorton’s Budgens supermarket and Heart in Business; Julian Hunt, vice president public affairs and communications, Coca-Cola European Partners; and Martin Kersch, executive director of the U.K.-based Foodservice Packaging Association.

(Thornton’s Budgens is the winner of the 2019 NACS European Convenience Retail Sustainability Award, sponsored by The Coca-Cola Company.)

Founded in 2006, Thornton’s Budgens launched plastic-free zones inside its North London store in November 2018, after converting more than 1,800 product lines to non-plastic packaging within a 10-week timeframe. During the process, the retailer worked with A Plastic Planet to source plastic-free suppliers. The move won the approval of customers and international attention from the media and major retailers.

After years of running a consulting business, Thornton said he was inspired to start a purpose-driven B Corporation business. “Businesses with purpose are more successful, more profitable, more fun to work at,” he said. He joked that he had a “midlife crisis and bought two supermarkets.”

Thornton and his team watched the film “A Plastic Planet” by Austrian filmmaker Werner Boote and were moved to reduce the amount of single-use plastics in the store. We looked at it from three perspectives, Thorton explained. First, reduce plastic throughout the store; second, look for suppliers who don’t use plastic packaging; and third, organize the store so that every department has a plastics-free zone. The store removed as much plastic as possible in the produce aisle, displaying loose fresh produce and using beachwood netting where needed. It wrapped fish in strong wax paper and bread in paper.

There have been stumbles, Thornton admitted. “When we first did [bread wrapped in paper] sales tanked, and waste went up. We used too much paper at first.” Sandwich meat from a local butcher didn’t sell well either because customers were used to buying it wrapped in plastic, so the store has now reverted to plastic-wrapped meat. Bleach without a plastic container, he said, is one thing the store hasn’t yet mastered.

After launching the effort with 1,800 plastic-free products, the count has fluctuated over time because some plastic-free products haven’t sold well, but the store now offers 2,385 plastic-free products.

“We’re not a specialty store,” Thornton said. “We’re a mainstream supermarket. And that makes it more challenging but also more interesting. Our customers totally, entirely got it from the moment we started.” Sales have increased 4% since then, he said. “Some customers are saying we are consciously buying more from you. We want to reward you for doing the right thing. What people say about other businesses efforts—it’s all ‘greenwash.’”

Kersh of the Foodservice Packaging Association pushed back on some assumptions about plastics. “When I come to an event like this, there is already the assumption that a world without plastic will be a better world,” he said. “I do have to challenge that assumption. Packaging has done a human good. We’re not anti-plastic, but we are anti-waste. Waste is the enemy, particularly food waste. There is evidence to show that plastic does do an amazing job in terms of reducing food waste.”

Kersh continued, “I’m old enough to remember life before supermarkets. We had very little choice. When you bought meats and bought fish, you had to give it a damn good sniff. Now you have massive choice from all over the world.”

Hunt said Coca-Cola started to look in earnest at sustainable packaging in 2016-17, gathering feedback from focus groups, customers and its own employees. “It was clear that packaging was emerging as the main concern,” Hunt said. “We just said we are going to work with others to recover all of the packaging we’re putting on the market.”

To that end, Coca-Cola is focusing on making sure the packaging it puts on the market is used efficiently and can be recycled. “We want to lead agenda when it comes to using recycled materials,” Hunt said.  “We don’t think of plastic bottles as single use.”

The discussion turned toward compostable packaging. Kersh, who lives in London, said home composting isn’t always practical or possible. What’s more, food waste recycling companies “don’t want packaging mixed in because it decomposes much slower.” He advised retailers who want to use compostable packaging to make sure it is certified as compostable.

“A really important tradeoff is about carbon footprint,” Hunt said. “Plastic has about half the carbon footprint of glass or aluminum,” she noted. “Really for us [at Coca-Cola] is how do you recover more to recycle more? As part of our thinking, yes, we do look at lots of innovations for finding new ways to get our drinks to consumers and our retailers. What we’re seeing from our consumers is lots of interest in this issue…but we’re not yet seeing it translate into meaningful change.”

Thornton argued that it’s time to move to refillable packaging. “The customer wants this change. That is critical. The customer is demanding this change. Bringing your own packaging is the ultimate solution,” Thornton said. “Ten years ago, we had fill-your-own olive oil, and it didn’t take off. We were too early.”

Kersh added, “Plastic is not the enemy. The real enemy is what you do with it at the end of its life.”

The Future of Electric Vehicles

Philippe Vangeel, secretary general at AVERE, the European Association for Electromobility, explored the impact of the mass demand for electrical vehicles. Despite numerous studies and collective data, no one has a clear idea when exactly mass demand for EVs will start, but we know it’s coming, stressed Vangeel. Sales of EVs are increasing due to success stories in China, he revealed, but he reminded attendees that electromobility included electric buses and trucks as well. Again, China is leading the electric charge by producing 18,000 electric buses every five weeks—sufficient to replace the entire bus fleet in London every five weeks.

Mass adoption of EVs will be driven by improvements in battery technology, Vangeel said. “The technology of today will not be the technology of tomorrow.” Range, for instance has grown from an initial 200 kilometers (124 miles) to 500-600 kilometers and even 700 kilometers with a solid-state battery. Batteries are also recyclable with more than 90% of the materials in the battery recovered, making the electric car part of the circular economy.

Concerns over charging capacity can be overcome with smart charging, Vangeel said. That means people taking control of when they charge their cars, such as at work, when the car is not being used. And, as with traditional fueling, not everyone will be charging their cars at the same time.

Charging speeds are improving too. Initially it took two hours to charge for a 200 kilometer journey, but new fast charging has reduced that time to 48 minutes, and now 150kW ultra-fast chargers have cut the time to 16 minutes and are targeting the same 200 kilometer range in just seven minutes.

Charging networks are also being expanded around the world, Vangeel said. In Europe, Ionity has 400 sites spanning the largest cities and is providing high-powered charging, and a similar network exists in the United States.

Modern, high-end electric cars will provide a rich data seam, Vangeel told CSE attendees. “EVs will use massive amounts of data and it will continuously be exchanged,” he said. Data could highlight that a car was standing idle while at work and could create potential car-sharing possibilities during the workday hours, for instance.

Vangeel wrapped up his session by urging attendees to embrace the future of electromobility. “Don’t put your head in the sand; recognize the opportunities,” he said.

Plastic is not the enemy. The real enemy is what you do with it at the end of its life.

Deli de Luca aims to excel in convenience in the city and on the road

Norway’s Deli de Luca aims to offer the best convenience concept in cities and on the road, according to Tormod Lier, director at parent group NorgesGruppen Convenience. In the session “We are a Convenience Retail Company: The Impact of EVs in Norway and Deli de Luca’s Pathway Forward,” Lier shared how the brand is developing its competency in the convenience retail market.

Founded in 2003, Deli de Luca operates 100 restaurants, including 70 sites on Esso forecourts, a partnership that expanded during 2016–2017. In Norway’s 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) total convenience retail market, Deli de Luca commands a turnover of €200 million and employs 2,000 people.

Lier explained why the business was investing money on stores in the fuel market in a country where it’s predicted that 50% of all new cars will be electric in 2019. “We are not an oil or fuel company but a retail company with competency in the convenience market. That’s not a trap for us but an opportunity. In the Norwegian market, traffic increases by around 2% each year—yes with more electric cars but traffic still increases—and hopefully everyone has got a hungry stomach.”

In times of rapid change, Lier emphasized the need to keep pace with time-pressed customers, to provide complete food solutions but also healthy options and free-from alternatives. “If you don’t take the responsibility for healthy alternatives then you will lose the customer,” he said.

Deli de Luca opened its first city convenience store concept at a petrol forecourt in August 2016. According to Lier, with declining fuel volumes, the business needed to give customers more reasons to stop—especially in Norway’s highly competitive food to go market where even soft discounters vie for a share of the pie.

Lier told Summit attendees the 12 bestsellers in the city store are broadly similar to those at more rural sites on the road. “There’s not a big difference having a premium convenience concept in the city,” he said. So, to win customers, the retail offer must be innovative, authentic, freshly made every day and with a quick roll out of new ideas.

Lier reported Deli de Luca was focused on three strategic concepts to win customers:

1. On the go (its main focus)
2. Dine in (following its investment at Esso stations)
3. Take home, which has the potential for the highest increase in turnover due to ultra-convenient locations
4. Speed also is of the essence, Lier stressed. “If you are not fast enough today, your competitors are going to beat you,” he said.

Deli de Luca aims for speed and operational excellence by providing employees with instant access to all KPIs, app-based task management and e-learning. The business is also working to expand to new customer groups and is deploying mystery shoppers, focus groups and research to help it to understand future new customers.

Lier revealed that the retailer will reach its goal to double the food and beverage turnover from 2017 to 2021 this year, and Deli de Luca’s share on food and drink today is 68-70% of the total store.

Gen Z, Millennials and Convenience Retailing

While veterans of the convenience retailing industry headlined most of the sessions at CSE, a panel of millennials and Gen Zers who work in the industry offered fresh insights into their generations’ passions and goals.

Lecyca Curiel, 20, moderated the four-person panel, “Why Are You Investing Yourself in Convenience Retailing?” An expert on Gen Z, Curiel works as a keynote speaker and researcher for WHETSON/strategic foresight. Curiel started the discussion by describing some characteristics of each cohort.

Millennials:

• Tech savvy
• Job achievement seekers
• Feedback oriented
• Job hoppers

Gen Z

• Multitaskers
• Entrepreneurs
• Digital natives

Tania Jacobsen, operations director, Reitan Convenience Denmark A/S, shared why her job and the industry is so compelling to her.

“You get to learn about statistics, customer behavior,” said Jacobsen, who has worked in the industry for a decade. “Everything goes real fast. No two days are alike. If you like your working life to be calm, stable and predictable, this is not the business to be in.”

Millennials, she said, have “a touchpoint and a high value on sustainability and social responsibilities.”

Keith Crawford, retail operations adviser, SPAR Ireland, said he is passionate about working with people. His father was in the convenience and fuel retailing industry, and Crawford has found it a natural fit for him, as well.

The panelists said Gen Z strives for career progression and development—they want to keep learning new things. “Life experiences are something we place a lot of priority on,” Crawford said.

Tap into what Gen Z is thinking, Crawford advised. SPAR regularly brings in marketing panels of millennials and Gen Z in its stores. “Gen Z said right off the bat, why are there newspapers and magazines at the front of the store? No one reads them anymore.” His friends are quick to tell him what’s wrong with the stores he manages and often text him feedback.

Because so many twentysomethings live with their parents or in small flats, they crave space where they can retreat to socialize or just sit with WiFi and a coffee. “They need a place to go,” he said, and c-stores can provide it. Healthy, fresh food at a good value is especially important. “We want that fresh agenda,” Crawford said.

Rosario Otones Vega, who works in franchise development for new retail concepts at global energy company Cepsa, has been in the industry for just three years. She views her generation as team-oriented, with no patience for traditional vertical hierarchies, and sees her more experienced colleagues as reluctant to challenge the status quo.

“To me, everyone is the same,” she explained. “My colleagues, they wait for things, because they have this instruction in their minds. For me it doesn’t fit. I prefer to work in teams. I can’t wait sitting hoping something happens and someone helps me. It’s kind of difficult sometimes to approach someone older in this way.”

She values the counsel of her 56-year-old mentor. “I know how he works, and he knows how I work,” she said, describing the mentoring culture in her company that helps different generations understand how other generations work best.

Sebastian Becker, head of wholesale and member of the board of Migrolino AG, said he is passionate about “developing things from scratch.” His advice to retail leaders who want to attract and keep younger workers?

“One part of this is taking away hierarchies,” he said. “Focus on hiring the best person for the job at hand, not who brings the most years of experience.” As an organization, consider how “you can show to the younger generation that you are open.”

All agreed that it’s important for millennials and Gen Z for the companies they work for to engage in socially aware, environmentally conscious issues, such as sustainability and reducing use of plastic packaging, for instance.

Crawford of SPAR pushed back a bit on the perception of millennials as job hoppers: “There’s no need to job hop if there’s movement” in your career within a company. A job in the industry can be more than “just money at the end of the week.” If younger workers “feel like they’re getting something out of it, they’re more likely to stay.”

He challenged the room to change how younger people perceive the industry. “Convenience stores aren’t seen as good places to work anymore,” Crawford said. “I think what we need to do is to change perception.” One way to do that is through “apprenticeship programs where people can work in a store and go to school. It’s a kind of learn-and-earn type of approach. I think that’s really important as well for the retailers in the room.”

Otones Vega agreed. “This industry has wide open different projects, different things [for career] development. I think my future in the industry will be long. For me, the feeling to be doing the same thing for years and years is not something that feels comfortable for me. When I talk to my parents, they say they live to work,” Otones Vega said. “I don’t want to work to live, but in the meantime I will work.”

What are some blind spots for the next generation of workers?

“I think what many of them are missing is a [customer] service point. I think the older generation might be better at providing service,” Jacobsen offered. “Not many of us sell products that can’t be bought anywhere else. What do we do to make sure that our customers buy from our stores instead of our competitors? I’m sure that service is really really important.”

Jacobsen expanded on the point. “I recently saw an analysis that 52% of all of us thinks that time is more important than money. What we provide in the convenience industry is service, making sure we provide what’s easier for our customers. In the sense that every decision we make…is there anything I can do to make this product or solution any more convenient for our customers? Today you can buy virtually everything you want on the internet, so once you get off the coach and go to a real store, you expect so much more.”

An audience member asked the panelists if they own cars. Moderator Curiel doesn’t own a car and uses public transportation but might consider buying one in the future to make her fast life “even faster” and “more convenient.”

Becker said electric cars aren’t compelling. “I don’t see myself as buying EVs. I’m totally engaged with big cars with powerful engines.” He shared that two 16- and 18-year-old boys who are relatives don’t want a driver’s license and aren’t sure why anyone would.