By the Numbers

ALEXANDRIA, Va.—Nothing tells a story like cold, hard facts. That’s exactly what members get with the vast array of NACS research products. From industry figures to benchmarking data, members can use the information to assess their place among their peers and competitors.

Leroy Kelsey, NACS director of research, says the suite of research reports is valuable to stores of all sizes, types and locales. It provides NACS members with “an incredible opportunity” to access such data as inside sales, gallons, operating costs and margins of the most profitable operations by store. Even stores can assess whether they are “performing well relative to their peers as well as the overall marketplace.”

“If you spend a lifetime looking in the mirror, I guarantee that you are the best looking thing that you’ve ever seen! Informed benchmarking of peers and close competitors can help you ‘get out of the mirror’ and get perspective on opportunities and performance gaps within your organization,” Kelsey said.

What’s available

The full inventory includes the NACS State of the Industry Report®, NACS State of the Industry Compensation Report, NACS Category Definitions Guide and the NACS/Coca-Cola Retailing Research Council reports. Members also can access individual fact sheets on specific business topics, as well as a detailed definition of a convenience store.

The NACS State of the Industry Report® is the industry’s most comprehensive annual collection of firm-level, store-level and same-store level data and trends, including economic and industry overviews, financials, store operations, merchandising, motor fuels sales and top performer analysis.

The NACS State of the Industry Compensation Report provides a snapshot of the compensation picture in the convenience store industry, including wages and salaries, fringe benefits and turnover for a variety of positions typical of a convenience store business. These metrics drive employee recruitment, training and retention.

“Whether soliciting help from an outside consulting firm or engaging NACS Consulting, meaningful benchmarking can help identify what success looks like—what’s working and whether your business is growing as fast as the industry,” Kelsey said. “Market leaders are firms that exceed industry benchmarks consistently, while controlling costs.”

Insightful tools

Two other popular NACS research tools include the NACS Convenience Tracking Program (CTP) and C-Store Exchange (CSX). CTP is a syndicated approach to conduct live convenience shopper intercepts at selected retail outlets in order to understand shopper attitudes and motivations and how they affect purchase behavior in the store. The shopper intercept questionnaires include separate entry, exit, gas-n-go and store characteristics surveys to get a complete understanding of shopper experience at “the moment of truth.”

CSX data is the engine behind the NACS State of the Industry Report®, Kelsey said. This dynamic, self-reported subscription database provides members with financial and operational benchmarking. The data is available to both retailers and suppliers. Subscribers are issued an unlimited number of licenses to view CSX data and receive ongoing support from the CSX staff in preparing and interpreting reports and building selling stories around CSX data.

Who’s your shopper?

The NACS Shopper Panel allows retailers and suppliers to customize specific product/category questions to generate even more insights. The panel consists of a subset of thousands of c-store shoppers who were interviewed as part of the Convenience Tracking Program. NACS will assist in developing the questionnaire and collecting insights into shopper attitudes and behaviors concerning topics of interest to the participant. Also, NACS will field the survey digitally and provide a results report, including an executive summary and key takeaways.

Kelsey reminds NACS members that shopper insights can inform and shape a business’ strategy.

“Shopper insights play a vital role in helping to identify what shoppers want, how their shopping habits are evolving and how convenience store retailers (in collaboration with their supplier partners) can capitalize on constantly changing shopper attitudes and behaviors,” Kelsey said. “Understanding this will help to influence their purchasing habits and improve the ‘stickiness’ of your brand.”