By Bill Scott, President, StoreReport LLC

We had a great seminar in Dallas this week, hosted by Dr. Deacue (DQ) Fields and Dr. Ron Rainey, and held at the Embassy Suites in Irving, Texas.

The program was made possible by the U.S. Department of Agriculture through the Cochran Fellowship Program. The topics included, Overview of Trends in the U.S. Convenience Store Industry, Convenience Store Merchandising and Evaluating Promotion Strategies, Understanding Merchandising in the U.S. Local Food Movement and my presentation “Retail Reinvention.”

I spoke for over an hour about how convenience store operators needed to change in order to survive over the next decade. The attendees (primarily grocery suppliers and convenience store operators from Asian countries) had lots of questions, and I think we were able to answer all of them to their satisfaction.

The challenges of running a business in Communist controlled countries was enlightening. None of the attendees were allowed to market gasoline, so the emphasis was devoted entirely to retail sales inside the stores.

Suppliers and retail store operators were excited about the possibilities of working more closely with each other to improve the movement of inventory from manufacturers into the hands of consumers.

If you would like for me to speak at one of your functions, contact me, and I will try my very best to work it into my schedule.