Fuel Marketer Intelligence: Supply Chain Dynamics to Retail Fuel Prices By Brian Milne As we head toward the holiday season, gasoline prices in the U.S. are doing something they typically don’t do this time of year—advance. Several factors are driving the atypical price increase in early November that, as they say in trading lingo, has…
Conducting a Foodservice Focus Group
Gaining knowledge of what distinguishes your foodservice program requires due diligence and asking some questions. By John Matthews Convenience store operators continue to plunge into foodservice with the hopes of stemming the tide of lower margins with high-margin foodservice offerings. While the degrees of foodservice can vary greatly from chain to chain, the approach to…
Service Culture for a New Generation
One of the few respites I enjoy is sleeping on the plane. I’m fortunate to travel the country viewing c-stores and speaking at events, but where some people can get work done on a plane, I’ve come to find an adult beverage and a power nap are much better uses of my time. So when…
Case Study: Retailer Benefits From Renewable Fuel
By Jon Scharingson, Renewable Energy Group Inc. So what’s it like for a retailer to sell biodiesel blends at the pump? I can talk about the benefits, but I’d rather you hear from one of your peers in the industry. Kevin Cassidy is vice president at Sapp Bros., Inc., which has travel center and fuel…
Perfectly Poised to Pounce
Poor customer service can strike down even the biggest and brightest commercial retailer. By Jim Callahan Recently, I arrived at my bank on a Saturday morning as they opened the doors—and I hoped—the vault. Little did I know it would be another day of big business in Corporate America, in the greater Atlanta area where…
What is The Typical Profit Split Between Inside Sales and Gas?
By Bill Scott Today, someone asked me, “what is the typical profit split at a gas station between inside sales and gas” on Quora. Here is my response: I thought I had answered this question yesterday, but I will answer it again in a different way. My data shows that in the United States, currently…
Operationalizing Your 2018 Business Plan
“The Nice Thing About Not Planning Is That Failure Comes As A Complete Surprise Rather Than Being Preceded By A Period Of Worry And Depression.” — Anonymous Operationalizing your 2018 business planning is a step-by-step process of action, reaction and counteraction for visualizing the execution of your business plan in relation to your competition. Business…
NAG Wraps Up in Nashville
Nearly 11 months of planning culminated last month with the successful completion of another National Advisory Group (NAG) Conference in Nashville, which yielded record attendance and an outstanding lineup of educational sessions. NAG is a special group in the competitive convenience store industry focused on small, mid-sized and family-owned chains, and the unique challenges facing…
Why Networking Matters for Young Professionals
As the convenience store and petroleum industry continues to evolve, training the leaders of tomorrow is more important than ever. That’s the driving force behind the National Advisory Group’s (NAG) Young Executives Organization (YEO). This growing group of emerging industry leaders is keenly focused on education and networking with other next-generation executives who are facing…
A Fond Farewell
After more than 30 years in the convenience-store industry and a couple of more years writing about c-stores, a new opportunity awaits. By Fran Duskiewicz When I was deep in the middle of everything that was going on in the industry, I had little patience for those who I believed were coasting on past experiences…