This article is brought to you by Franklin Electric.
The evolving landscape of the convenience and fuel retailing industry, as highlighted by the NACS State of the Industry Report® of 2022, unveiled a challenging environment marked by escalating costs across essential inputs. The surge in expenses—spanning fuel, merchandise, and foodservice ingredients—culminated in a substantial 14.7% increase in total direct store operating expenses, amounting to an $18.5 billion total increase from the previous year.
This financial strain is prompting industry leaders to explore new solutions to navigate these disruptions to their daily operations.
Bill Gockman, senior global product manager at Franklin Electric, shed light on the multifaceted challenges faced by businesses within the convenience and fuel retailing sector: “A shortage of available workers, coupled with heightened maintenance and service costs, compounded by the inflation of overall expenses has catalyzed a drive among c-store operators to streamline their operations for greater efficiency wherever they can.”
In response to these challenges, Gockman advocated for a strategic investment in advanced monitoring and control equipment that is already essential to store operations and compliance but can also serve multiple purposes.
“Leveraging must-have site technology, like an automatic tank gauge (ATG), to do more than just fuel inventory and compliance monitoring can help c-store operators automate business operations, optimize staffing and reduce maintenance costs,” said Gockman.
Franklin Electric’s EVO Series offers all the fuel system monitoring capabilities that you would expect from an ATG, Gockman said, but it can also serve as a powerful replacement for other expensive site equipment.
“EVO can fulfill your basic fuel inventory and compliance monitoring requirements,” said Gockman. “But you can also use it to do things like lighting automation, cooler temperature monitoring, fuel theft monitoring, corrosion prevention and more. When paired with the right equipment, EVO can even help you fix outages in things like prices signs, fuel dispensers and other site controllers without having to pay for a service call to your site.”
In the convenience and fuel retail sector, technology has moved from operational tools to a key driver of strategic business change. As the industry continues to wrestle with the combined pressures of rising operational costs and a changing workforce landscape, the ability to leverage existing technologies, like the EVO Series, can streamline business operations to help reduce costs.
For more information on how c-store operators are optimizing their business operations with the EVO Series, download the C-Store Operations Quick Guide.