Convenience stores, especially smaller ones, operate on razor-thin margins. Every inch of shelf space must be earned, and the wrong product cut or addition can cost a retailer more than lost sales — it can potentially drive away a disappointed shopper for good.
Sandeep Chugani, a managing director and senior partner at the consulting firm Boston Consulting Group, said in an email to C-Store Dive that BCG research on service stations found that top reasons customers visit included getting in and out quickly, satisfying an impulse need and easily finding the few items they came for.
The assortment has to cater to those patterns, though which products are hot and which ones are not can vary not just from town to town, but store to store. And as c-stores devote more store space to push deeper into foodservice, that space becomes even more precious.
Now, a growing suite of artificial-intelligence-powered tools is helping retailers optimize their assortments with precise, data-driven insight, turning what was once a periodic, backward-looking exercise into an ongoing one.
As this technology grows more ubiquitous, experts share some thoughts on how c-stores — and particularly independent operators — can get the most out of applying technology to SKU rationalization.
