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One of the most popular NACS Show Education Sessions was the State of the Industry update, presented by Chris Rapanick, managing director of NACS Research. He opened the fire hose and shared a ton of industry data and benchmarks in an hour-long session. This annual Education Session is a master class in action, and a valuable forecast of how the remainder of the year could play out.
Here are several insights that feed into a key point Rapanick shared out of the gate: overall industry transactions remain flat.
State of Fuel in C-Stores
After several years of being flat or declining, total fuel gallons sold saw an uptick in 2024 and into 2025.
Lower average fuel prices and increased fuel economy have caused drivers to make fewer trips to the forecourt. This purchasing behavior impacts opportunities for retailers to attract gas-buying customers into the store to make inside merchandise and/or foodservice purchases.
Retailers may also want to reconsider their reliance on fuel margins, because the number of fuel transactions is not growing. Whether that’s because of more fuel-efficient vehicles coming online or higher electric-vehicle adoption rates, convenience retailers may want to look at ways to diversify their revenue streams and focus on growing inside sales and transactions.
Growing the Basket: In-Store Merchandise
Packaged beverages and other tobacco products (OTP) were the only two merchandise categories that outpaced inflation through June of 2025. Unit sales were down across all top 10 in-store categories with the exception of packaged sweet snacks, which amplifies the importance of increasing basket size.
“When you think about driving the inside business and how to increase your basket size, you need to focus on units. It's always great to drop an extra unit in the basket, whether through upselling or better promotions, which could impact your unit count,” said Rapanick.
Speaking of baskets, 73% of in-store merchandise transactions are from three categories: packaged beverages (34.1%), beer (11.2%) and nicotine (27.9%), which includes cigarettes and OTP. This speaks to the need to reduce out-of-stocks for these three categories in particular and maintain variety to boost inside sales.
Rapanick explained that when one of these three items is purchased, other in-store purchases are made as well. “Customers buy more when they buy these items, so instead of having only one item per basket, we usually see more units per transaction,” he said.
Foodservice as a Profit Center
While retailers experienced moderate foodservice growth of approximately 5%–6% over the past two years, this growth has been largely driven by price increases rather than volume. In 2024, the NACS-generated convenience CPI rate for foodservice was 8.9%. Although recent data for 2025 suggests a modest improvement of about two percentage points, inflation remains a concern.
Increased competition from quick-service restaurants (QSRs) continues to pose challenges. Insights from the Convenience Voices program show that 28% of customers frequent c-stores for specific purchases but leave to buy food elsewhere. The primary reason? Lack of variety. Rapanick suggested that retailers focus on maintaining consistency in pricing and quality to compete with other channels, and prioritize the foodservice items that are well-known and frequently purchased.
You Can’t Measure What You Can’t Manage
If you attended the NACS State of the Industry Summit this past April, you saw that 2024 started sluggish but wrapped up strong. Will the same scenario play out this year? It remains to be seen, but the back half of 2025 will be a challenge for growth.
“Transaction counts inside the store are flat at best, and people are wary of the economy,” cautioned Rapanick, adding that although inflation has slowed, tariffs could have an impact on pricing.
For nearly 60 years, NACS has maintained the most comprehensive and trusted source of industry-specific benchmarks on operational and financial data in its annual NACS State of the Industry Report®. NACS is able to collect this information confidentially through its NACS CSX database, which provides customizable tools for financial and operational analysis and benchmarking to both retailer and supplier subscribers.
The information Rapanick presented at the NACS Show is snapshot of all the 2025 insights and analysis that will be delivered at the NACS State of the Industry Summit. Sign up to be notified when registration opens for the April 14-16, 2026, event.