Over the past several articles, we have constructed a race car that was designed to win the race for volume. I think it has been a great analogy for how retailers can design their businesses for success.

As we near the end of our Race for Volume series, let’s explore the importance of brand. In our analogy of the convenience retailer as a finely tuned performance race car, I picture brand as the shell or body of our car.

Over the past several articles, I have been comparing our retail network to a high-performance car in a competitive race for volume. So far, we have looked at how pricing, data, competition, facilities and operations enable success. In this article, I will focus on merchandising and how it equates to the spoilers and wings that make our performance car run efficiently.

At the beginning of this series, I introduced the analogy of the convenience retailer as a finely tuned performance car in a race for fuel volume. In the past four installments, we have considered the importance of appropriate pricing, accurate and insightful data, monitoring competition and the right facilities profile. In this article, we will take a closer look at operations and how this element enables success.

Getting the right mix of fuel pumps, parking spaces, store layout and more

In previous articles in this series, we looked at the relative importance of pricing, data and competition as convenience retailers try to fine-tune their business to win the race for volume. Using the analogy of retailers as high-performance race cars, we have identified pricing as the turbo charger, data the telemetry and competition as exactly what it is—the competition.

When is cutting fuel prices good for business and when is it a death spiral?

It is no longer news that the race for gasoline volume is becoming increasingly tough for convenience retailers. The reasons are well known: more efficient vehicles, growth in alternative fuels, increasingly rigorous legislative standards, expansion of non-traditional competitors. The list goes on.

When pricing competition heats up — as it tends to do — what's your solution? If you have a one-dimensional view of your fuel and retail success, you'd simply lower prices. But we don't live in a one-dimensional world, and neither does your business. Lowering prices isn't the answer.

When you have access to true market intelligence, you have access to a lot more than just a data set full of information about your closest competition.

by Marianne Hillhouse

The summer travel season is over. Did your c-store sites capture the sales you were expecting? Did your facilities stand up to demand and deliver what shoppers wanted? Are you riding the industry trend of record in-store sales? Fuel demand may fluctuate, but the c-store experience can excite customers and drive sales to offset the historic profit squeeze coming from low gas prices.

For pricing analysts, a market's move toward deregulation (such as the Mexican fuel market's current trajectory), signifies a transition from stability to instability. Over the course of phases which play out through the years, competition-driven pricing will permeate your pricing reality, making the act of pricing even more detailed and the need for holistic visibility into quality data even greater.

Pricing is hugely influential to your sales volume, so you've got to stay competitive. But pricing mastery, like mastery of any skill, doesn't just happen overnight. It takes a lot of focus and experience to develop in-depth conceptual understanding of fuel pricing. Many analysts never reach it.

If you're ready to gain market share and establish a better position in the marketplace, business intelligence is a must. But what is it? And how can it help you accomplish those goals?

Among the fuel and convenience retailing crowd, there's a constant fear that fuel demand will suddenly or sharply decline, leaving retail sales crashing in its wake.

Though the fear is real and pervasive, the threat of declining demand doesn't appear to be a current reality: According to the Short Term Energy Outlook released in June by the the U.S. Energy Information Administration, "Motor gasoline consumption increased by an estimated 240,000 b/d (2.7%) in 2015 to an average of 9.16 million b/d. Gasoline consumption is forecast to increase by 170,000 b/d (1.8%) to 9.33 million b/d in 2016, which would be the highest annual average gasoline consumption on record."