The NACS/NIQ Global Convenience Store Industry Report Q3 2025 provides a centralized overview of some of the top trends in convenience retailing that defined markets in the third quarter of 2025. Retailers worldwide navigated inflationary pressures, evolving shopper missions and regulatory changes while continuing to deliver growth.
“Across 33 countries, performance varied by region, but common strategies emerged, focused on agility, assortment innovation and promotional effectiveness,” said James Hunt, managing director, commercial, NIQ.
Per Hunt, key highlights from the Q3 report include:
- Inflation and adaptation: Inflation remained a major driver of value growth, particularly in Latin America where average unit prices surged +25.4% in Argentina and +19.9% in Chile. Retailers countered these pressures through targeted promotions, private label expansion and localized pricing strategies.
- Shopper missions reshape assortments: Evolving shopper missions such as “dinner for tonight” and quick meal solutions are reshaping assortments in Europe, where fresh and perishable foods combined with non-alcoholic beverages now make up more than 30% of convenience store sales, surpassing tobacco. North America saw continued gains in cold dispensed beverages and wine, while Asia-Pacific posted explosive growth in niche categories like Taiwan’s muscle and joint analgesics (+404%) and canned fruit (+324%).
In Q3 2025, three of the top five growth categories in the United States—wine (+10%), cold dispensed beverages (+5.2) and liquor (+4.1%)—were also on the Q2 2025 top five list. Three of the top five “what’s not” categories—packaged bread (-10%), commissary and other packaged products (-7.7%) and fluid milk products (-7.0%)—were also on the Q2 2025 list of top declining categories.
The full NACS/NIQ Global Convenience Store Industry Report Q3 2025 can be seen here.
Interested in learning more about c-store data from 2025? Register for the 2026 NACS State of the Industry Summit April 14-16 in Schaumburg, Illinois.