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Hello!

This is the 25th edition of Always Be Convenient, your guide to navigating convenience and growth in a digitized world. From mobile apps and marketing programs to digitizing stores and empowering employees, I cover it all.

If you’re new around here, you can find all previous issues in the archives.

Today is Inauguration Day in the U.S., where the 47th president of the United States was sworn into office. Among many headlines and conversations, one particular line caught my attention from the president’s speech, citing that “the golden age of America begins right now.”

The president has many things on his mind, but business leaders will be watching closely too. With a change in leadership comes the potential for greater change.

This industry is impacted significantly by legislation, and not every retailer even operates on the same playing field. Convenience can be hard to offer when government gets in the way.

Between the strength of beer, availability of marijuana, and even the sole remaining state that still prohibits consumers from pumping their own gas, legislation doesn’t just impact the business – it is part of it.

But without straying too far into politics, this topic of the “golden age” also reminded me of a similar reference last year by Barron’s, the financial publication, that said “[In America] it’s a golden age for convenience stores.”

Great brands are growing, leaders are investing in foodservice, and everyone’s business is being transformed by the expectations of the digital consumer, including the way we buy.

And yet, in an increasingly convenience-driven world, the lens we should view each of these changes through is one of opportunity, because we are convenience!

Conveniently,
Mike

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Connecting points of purchase

The last few weeks we’ve been discussing the four primary enablers of digital engagement, covering your digital presence and enacting omnichannel marketing thus far. This week we’ll touch on the third: Unified Commerce.

Unified commerce represents a single seamless selling experience that enables customers to purchase from you at any time, anywhere, and any way they want.

The concept is similar to omnichannel marketing in that all relevant channels are being orchestrated around the customer – except in commerce it becomes more complicated because it’s not just marketing messages, but consumers’ ability to buy.

At first this sounds simple for retailers. Making it difficult to buy is the antithesis of retail. It would make you an inconvenient convenience store.

To create a single selling experience, start with understanding your points of purchase.

Most fuel gallons sold are now paid for at the pump, and the majority of sales in-store are flowing through the store’s point-of-sale. It’s not particularly innovative, but quite frankly, it’s what’s gotten us to where we are.

But as you look broadly at retail in general, which should always be influencing your point of view, the industry now sees just 83.7% of retail sales take place in physical stores.

Looking across to grocery, another channel competing for convenience, forecasts show 81% of its sales will come from physical locations by 2026. This means e-commerce will represent 19.0% of grocery retail sales, making it the largest e-commerce category – bigger than apparel and consumer electronics’ share.

As consumers become more and more ingrained in these methods of purchase, expectations will only rise for the convenience channel, just like they have for every other category.

Savvy c-stores have gotten out ahead of digital purchasing, with many leaning into third-party delivery marketplaces during the pandemic. A number of brands have also implemented first-party ordering, where orders come directly through the retailer’s platform (not a third party).

Whether offering traditional c-store fare or a differentiated foodservice offering, being ready to serve consumers with order-ahead capabilities is a growing focus for leaders.

Creating a unified commerce experience is about more than just having many channels. The process of unifying that experience – for employees and customers – comes from bridging the various purchase platforms into a single system for the retailer.

Having a single underlying system makes all of your use cases possible.

Accounting has a single point of reconciliation. Supply chain has a source of truth for inventory. Merchandising has visibility to total sales. And operations has a streamlined approach to sell.

When these points of purchase are not integrated, you are left dealing with manual processes that slow down your experience, frustrate your internal team, and ultimately inconvenience the customer.

As you think about evolving to meet consumers’ expectations, be prepared to assess your own processes and think through what it will take.

Though convenience has generally been later to e-commerce, the upside is that many of the industry’s vendors now have full-featured solutions for integrating to backoffice systems and streamlining the consumer experience.

Your best customers may give you some grace for a challenging experience, but long-term you must get it right – for your customers and for your teams.

Taking time to navigate the right approach, in an integrated and unified way, will put you in a much better position than rushing into something done halfway.

And when you’re running a business like ours, having a unified commerce experience isn’t just convenient – it’s critical.