Will convenience stores give QSRs a run for their money?

If you’re a QSR (quick service restaurant) chain, you need to have an eye out for what the convenience stores are doing. 7-Eleven, Wawa, Casey’s, and the likes have significantly upgraded their Foodservice game and these sales now account for 23% of all sales at convenience stores in the US!

 

Restaurant Dive reports from a BlueDot Convenience Experience Report that,

U.S. consumers perceive convenience stores to be on par with quick-service restaurants, and 59% consider purchasing a meal from a c-store when stopping for fast food.

And this is a significant number! Other numbers from this report are as follows:

  • Nearly 30% purchase fast food from c-stores
  • Of this, 27% get grab-and-go refrigerated items, 25% go for hot food and 21% buy made-to-order meals
  • One in four consumers visit c-stores for lunch

The lines are blurring between c-stores and QSR as c-stores are now offering a much wider range of food items including hot meals. According to Bluedot’s survey of more than 1,500 U.S. consumers, over 50% purchase snacks at c-stores, while 20% buy grocery items and 16% get alcoholic beverages.

 

Other key developments:

  • Last year, DoorDash introduced DoubleDash via which consumers can add orders from a c-store to an existing food order without additional fees
  • Wawa has opened its first free-standing drive-thru while 7-Eleven launched its first restaurant drive-thru

 

The Insight

All these developments clearly indicate that c-stores and QSR brands are going to have a larger overlap of offerings. As an F&B brand, what should your strategy be?

 

At LogiNext, we’ve been working with several brands to digitize, optimize and automate delivery management. As a QSR brand, you need to infuse technology further so that you can expand on home delivery offerings. Signing up for 3rd party aggregators alone is not enough, you need to have a system in place with carrier integration and a more holistic platform that can allow you to roll out different offers quickly. For instance, a customer might want to buy a bottle of ketchup along with their fries. Can you figure out a way of offering this?

 

If c-stores are foraying in the QSR domain, can QSRs also work the other way and expand into some categories that a c-store would be primarily offering?

 

All these are possibilities with a tech platform like LogiNext. You may be a QSR brand or a c-store looking to cross-sell or upsell; technology and automation play a key role in this! Our end-to-end logistics management software can help you figure out ways in which you can find an optimal strategy to maximize sales in this ever-changing landscape.

 

 

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