Retail
July/August 2000
C-Store design
pitfalls
Everyone makes mistakes, even people who are paid to know better. As the
convenience store industry becomes more sophisticated and more capital
intensive, design mistakes have become more and more expensive.
ASS&CSN talked to oil company executives and independent
chain operators, past and present, as well as design consultants, specialist
architects and industry suppliers to discover what they saw as the most
common design mistakes made with C-Stores and rebuilds.
Almost all of the people consulted did not want to be
quoted in a national industry magazine, so their comments are reproduced
here anonymously. Some are not strictly related to design mistakes,
but have been included because they are interesting.
"Sometimes operators donít take any notice of the
demographics of their local area. They go with their standard offer
without bothering to think whether they are in a, say, strongly ethnic
area. Whatís the point of being in an area with a predominantly Asian
customer base and not offer Asian food? What about the operator with
a KFC on his site in a largely Muslim area in Sydneyís west. He persuaded
his franchisor to offer Halal chicken and sales went through the roof.
I donít think KFC or an oil major would have thought of that."
Former oil company exec.
"I think some independents, who may have a fantastic
retail concept, let themselves down by cutting corners to save costs.
Cut corners can reduce their returns by ten per cent."
Industry management consultant.
"Senior management seems to be withdrawing from the
marketplace and staying indoors. They donít have a clue who their customer
is, are not customer driven and have no idea of customer service."
Former senior manager, major C-Store chain.
"Cool rooms are never big enough. The more you stock
the more you sell." Operator, independent chain.
"Thereís nothing worse than doing a rebuild on a
store thatís been designed with load bearing internal walls. It was
a cheap option when they built it, but now itís going to cost major
dollars and lost time to put steel beams in."
C-Store architect.
"Itís amazing to see sites with the fuel filling
points in the wrong places. Increasingly these days, drivers wonít take
hoses under the truck and will refuse to deliver if the access isnít
right. Moving fill points can be very expensive. Another common mistake
is using fridges with internal condensers that overload the air conditioning
system. Yet another is building blind spots around the console, which
is great for drive-offs."
Same C-Store architect.
"The convenience experience should begin when the
customer enters the site. It should begin with shop front parking. Neglecting
shop front parking on a new site or rebuild is a major mistake."
C-Store design consultant.
"A lot of feasibility studies on new sites and major
rebuilds are not done properly. They need to be more thorough and over
a broader spectrum of management disciplines. There are plenty of dog
sites out there that were dogs before they were built."
Senior manager, independent chain.
"I think a lot of operators allow the big suppliers
to take over the shop with their own promotional material. This takes
away from the siteís identity and reduces sales of other products."
Design consultant.
"There are plenty of new sites with too many of those
silly open-fronted refrigerated dairy cases that need a huge load of
perishable stock to look half decent and not enough full height fridges
with doors. In fact most sites donít have enough refrigeration."
Same design consultant.
"Before we start designing a site, we need to understand
who our customer is, what our core business is going to be and what
will be the service expectation of the customers."
Manager, independent chain
"A lot of sites have things in the wrong place. The
office should be a close as possible to the console and there should
be a separate door to take deliveries, plus a dedicated area for storing
trash out of sight."
Recently awarded C-Store designer.
"Floors are a neglected part of convenience store
design and we often end up with a poor quality vinyl that wears unevenly
and canít be repaired. Use only quality ceramics and tile right through
the store under counters and partitions. And leave a stack of spare
tiles stored in the roof."
Manager, independent.
"A lot of operators tend to under-pump, or over-pump
the site by installing too few or too many fuel dispensers. Often using
four dispensers and two consoles gives a lot better result than eight
dispensers and one console. This is a $100,000 decision, which is often
poorly made."
Specialist architect
"The industry has gone totally overboard with new
concepts and weíre losing our consistency of look. Just when the customer
gets a concept in his head of what a store is and what it stands for,
we go and change it. Circle-K became Select. Foodplus became Express.
Shop Stop became Star Mart. AM PM is becoming 7-Eleven. The list goes
on. Weíve got to stop jerking the customer around."
Former oil company executive.
"I think the majors chop and change too much. Every
time thereís someone new in the chair, a new project gets started up.
Mind you, Iím jealous of their budgets but I think the waste is sickening."
Manager, independent chain.
"We always try to cut costs and end up paying twice.
Cost cuts almost always result in a smaller store. But you always grow
into a store and you canít have too much space."
Manager, independent chain
"I think that leaving out an extended over-cover
canopy is a huge mistake that all of the majors are making. They do
it in order to split the C-Store from the forecourt. Customers coming
to the shop have no protection or comfort from the weather. Weíve spent
$30,000 extra on one site and even extended the canopy over the shopfront
parking. The drivewayís always full in wet weather and weíll be doing
this with all our sites in future."
Victorian independent
"We can get very precious about demographics and
so on. But basically we have to realise that weíre living off a customer
base that comes to buy petrol. We have to listen to what theyíre telling
us and put in a store thatís designed to be flexible."
Manager, independent
"If you go to a non-specialist designer or a general
architect who has little experience in the design of retail petroleum
sites, you stand a good chance of experiencing several of these problems."
Specialist C-Store architect