I visited a gas station over an early June weekend for the first time since March—and no, I don’t drive a hybrid. Let that sink in: My car has been sitting in my garage since the Virginia governor issued a stay-at-home directive. My tank was three-quarters full, and my left front tire needed air. After using the air machine at the Tiger Mart, I went inside for a Coke Zero, and at the counter, I hesitated as I dug out a bill and coins. Did the store still accept cash?
“Of course,” the masked station manager told me from behind a plexiglass partition. “We need all the cash we can get!” I inquired about business, and he made a diving motion with his hand. “It’s bad,” he told me, “but not as bad as in April. People are afraid to leave home,” he said. I wished him luck and noted that nearly all of the pumps on the forecourt were busy. An encouraging sign, especially since the smaller “non-essential” stores in the adjacent shopping center were starting to reopen.
Retailers have risen to challenge after challenge in the past few months.
It’s no surprise that c-store foot traffic has declined. By early June, trips were at roughly 90% of the level they were a year ago, excluding the morning daypart, which lagged at just over 80%, according to data from PDI and NACS. In early June, the National Bureau of Economic Research officially declared that the nation entered a recession in February. Just how long it will last, though, is subject to debate. So it’s instructive to revisit the learnings from the last recession to see how consumer shopping habits might change and how agile category management plans can help convenience retailers flex to anticipate and meet new customer demands. Our cover story looks at category management in a post-pandemic world.
Payments is one of the many areas affected by COVID-19 and one most certainly ripe for change, as concerns linger about the personal contact that comes with handling cash. In the past few months, Kum & Go, Sheetz and other c-stores have rolled out or upgraded their mobile apps and payment systems to enable customers to order and pay for goods or fuel with their smartphones. This month, we examine what’s next for mobile payments in the U.S.
Pre-pandemic, there was a lot of buzz about legalizing marijuana for recreational use in the U.S., at least at the state level. Canada began allowing cannabis sales for adult use nationwide in October 2018, and while initial demand was strong, first-year sales fell far short of analysts’ rosy projections. Turns out, Canada encountered some stumbling blocks that could inform a potential nationwide rollout of legal cannabis in the U.S., as we detail in “Oh, Canada!”
Convenience and fuel retailers have risen to challenge after challenge during the past few months. Staying open, staying safe, serving your neighbors—through a pandemic and also protests and unrest following the police-involved death of George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis, as well as other injustices. Looters hit some of your stores and threatened your employees, while in other cases, neighbors stood guard to protect their beloved corner markets. At NACS, we’ve had some tough conversations about not only the business costs of the unrest but, more importantly, the human pain and frustration behind the protests. In these emotionally charged times, let’s not lose sight of the good that binds us together.
