CHICAGO – Paco Underhill, a “refugee from academia” who found his niche by practicing his profession rather than talking about it, challenged attendees at the 2008 NACS State of the Industry Summit in partnership with CSP to let their eyes guide them through the store and recognize issues that can help retailers maximize store functionality and enhance their customers’ overall shopping experience.

No matter what the store or the country, from Mexico to Dubai, there are a series of issues that are germane to the U.S. convenience and petroleum retailing industry, according to Hill. First, he commented how our visual language is evolving faster than our spoken or written language. This presents a few challenges as retailers look at store design, such as how a customer under the age of 30 versus a customer over the age of 50 essentially “sees” the store – what signage they recognize first, how quickly their eyes adjust to light and colors, and whether retailers are conscious of how and where they are communicating store offers.

Second, opportunities to capture female shoppers are often overlooked. Underhill suggested that certain elements can make a store appeal to females, such as bright stores with good lighting, clean stores and bathrooms, a strong product mix and hand cleansing at the pump.

Third, we are a society that moves “with a clock inside our heads that ticks at a relative degree of loudness,” said Underhill, noting that selling back time to customers is the root of the convenience store business.

The fourth issue is paying attention to what is global and what is local. The challenge, Underhill said, is recognizing what’s global about a store brand, what’s national, regional or local, which can help retailers make sense of same-store data and become more sophisticated about what they’re selling and where – what’s moving and what’s not. “How can we take our data engines and make them relevant” to the ones inside the store that execute, such as the store-level managers and not just the CEOs and vice presidents?

Underhill’s fifth issue is that we are a nation of immigrants, and that retailers should explore how they can reach out to different communities that fits their store formats and builds loyalty. “Who is that we are serving?” he commented.

“Start in the darkness before we move into the light,” said Underhill, noting that convenience stores are defined by the roads they are next to, meaning the same exact store on a rural corner is going to become infinitely different if it’s sitting next to a highway. He also commented that today’s retail landscape is operating like a “21st century bar fight,” where everyone is competing for a consumer’s discretionary income and looking at convenience stores to see what they are doing and how they can do it better.

“We have a responsibility to understand our customers better, “ said Underhill. “Some of us have grown accustomed to thinking while sitting down,” noting that everything that can make a store “functionable” happens in the store and not behind a desk or a corporate office.

“Anyone in the retail world has to spend the time on the floor” and see how everything on their site works, suggested Underhill, noting that all it takes is one weekend a month inside the store.