Todd
Hale, Nielsen's vice president of consumer and shopper insights, had some good
news and some bad news for retailers attending his "Understanding the
Convenience Shopper" general session at this year's NACS State of the
Industry summit.
The good news: the convenience store shopper is driving
sales growth and will continue to drive growth in the future. The bad news is
other retailers are "messing with" the c-store business, from dollar
stores going after tobacco sales to drug retailers getting into the foodservice
game.
"How do you compete with (other) retailers in terms of
their assortment and what's going on inside of their box in terms of how they
connect with shoppers today and in the future?" Hale asked.
To help address this concern, he looked at some retail "hot
buttons," many of which provide some unexpected opportunities for c-store
operators to compete with outside channels and grow their business.
"An amazing occurrence is happening today around food
and the fight over food," Hale said, referring to his Food Fight hot
button. "You're messing with existing food retailers and non-food
retailers are now messing with you when you think about all the fresh products
that you can find in drug stores and dollar stores. You've even got clothing
manufacturers like Tommy Bahamas opening up restaurants."
Nielsen's data shows that fresh prepared food sales are
growing across all channels, particularly in grocery. Still, Hale has been
impressed with c-store retailers like Canastota, N.Y.-based Nice 'N Easy, which
has used the consumer interested in prepared food offerings to help grow its
private-label business.
"The connection with food is interesting," he
said. "It does help to build a nice equity with shoppers if you can do it
well."
The demand for fresh food speaks to another hot button of
Hale's: Health and Wellness.
"We have a segmentation scheme we use at Nielsen that
comes from the National Marketing Institute that segments consumers into how
engaged they are with health and wellness," said Hale. "It ranges
from the 'well beings' — who are very engaged in making sure what goes in them
is good for them and are also very green in how they live — to the 'eat drink
and be merries,' who really could care less about being healthy."
Not surprisingly, it's those on the less-conscious side of
this health-and-wellness spectrum that tend to shop at c-stores, but Hale said
he believes the 'well beings' could present a very profitable opportunity for
the channel.
"The people who are engaged in health and wellness
spend a lot more and make a lot more trips," he said. "They're very
important, but tend to make more trips to grocery and club."
The growing market of health-conscious consumers has driven
retailers such as Dallas-based 7-Eleven to commit to offering healthier,
fresher fare at their retail locations. This kind of commitment won't work for
all retailers — different retailers will have to look at their shoppers to
determine what kind of health-and-wellness mix will best drive profits in their
locations.
"You have some flexibility here," Hale said. "Healthy
options are something you can win with, but you need to judicious about where
and how you do it."