Him, the UK-based research retail consultancy, is launching its Convenience Tracking Programme (CTP) in the US market.

It will be managed and run by NACS and means that for the first time the industry will be able to benchmark convenience operations by comparing shopper insights from the UK, USA and Australia.

Commenting on the announcement, Mike Greene, CEO of Him! UK, said: “NACS was an obvious partner for us as their contacts and industry exposure in America is unrivalled. It will be exciting to compare shopper insights across three convenience markets. We often hear that one market is very different to the next…but often, the reality is that markets have more in common than differences.”

Thousands of shoppers will be interviewed across US convenience stores, starting this month (April) in the north west region. The results are due for release in June.

With 146,294 convenience and petrol retailers and sales up 15% to $569bn in 2006 (NACS), the US convenience store industry is registering the highest growth among western countries in value terms.

While sales growth has been driven largely by higher gasoline prices, in-store sales have also seen strong growth – up 8.3% in 2006, outpacing overall retail sales growth of 5%.  

The US convenience market is dominated by small, independent operators, which account for 62% of convenience stores in the US. Top selling categories include cigarettes and tobacco, soft drinks, beers, foodservice items, confectionery and savoury snacks.

In this respect, the US market is not dissimilar to the UK, where Him! has been running its CTP for 11 years and has interviewed almost 1m convenience store shoppers in that time.

In store terms, however, the UK is around a third of the size of the US market with 50,000 c-stores and has been recording 5% sales growth (double the UK grocery average) and experiencing a resurgence of local and community retailing.

In Australia, where Him franchised CTP in 2005 and subsequently launched in New Zealand in 2006, soft drinks and cigarettes are core categories too.

With 4,300 stores, it is a much smaller market but, like the US where 79% of convenience stores sell fuel, forecourts dominate and account for 93% of the sector.