StORES Magazine - August 2007 - (Page S17)

SIZZLING SEGMENT HOT1OO 21.90% 34.6% 19.5% 17.4% 16.5% 15.2% Quick Stops The Pantry Susser Holdings Travel Centers of America Petro Stopping Centers Casey’s General Stores 46 what, at least for the next couple of quarters, in terms of the criteria a major deal will need to meet before we go ahead with it.” Green Kangaroo ncluded among The Pantry’s newly-built stores is a “green” Kangaroo unit in Gainesville, Fla., that was constructed with low-toxin materials recycled from the car dealership that had previously occupied the site. It utilizes daylight to illuminate the interior and low-voltage fixtures for night operations; landscaping consists of native and adaptive Florida I Linens ’n Things was acquired for $1.3 billion in February 2006 by an investor group lead by Apollo Capital Management. Under the direction of Robert DiNicola — who engineered the turnaround of Zale jewelers a few years ago and General Nutrition Center stores more recently — LnT worked during the year to improve out-of-stock positions. More significantly, Linens ’n Things also began unloading $100 million of aged-out merchandise (about a quarter of the inventory) and pared its merchandise offerings by 10 percent, to about 20,000 SKUs. This is all part of a nine-year turnaround plan that also includes replacing about half the merchandise team, from the divisional merchandise manager level up. The efforts have come at a price, as both consumer traffic in the stores and the average transaction amounts were down last year. The housing slump and a high level of interest expense contributed to last year’s loss, and it certainly didn’t help that an anticipated surge in buying during the 2006 holiday season failed to materialize. WWW.STORES.ORG plant materials that don’t require irrigation once they become established. The Pantry says it is the first c-store in the country to achieve the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification by the U.S. Green Building Council. The Pantry leads a group of five companies in the quickstop sector, one of seven “sizzling” retail segments singled out for their aggregate sales increases. The group also includes Susser Holdings, operator of the Stripes c-store chain; Travel Centers of America, which became an independent company earlier this year after being spun off by Hospitality Properties Trust; Petro Stopping Centers; and Casey’s General Stores. It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that convenience retailers lead the Hot 100 with the highest year-toyear sales gain of any retail segment. “We are where America shops,” Sam Turner, chairman of the National Association of Convenience Stores, pronounced at the NACS spring conference. He cited the following figures: more than 145,000 c-stores, averaging 1,100 daily transactions, equals 159 million transactions per day. In other words, “it takes 40.8 hours for us to serve the equivalent of everyone in America,” Turner said. Right behind the quick-stop group are department stores, led by chart-topping Bon-Ton, but also including Federated (enjoying sales boosts from its May Most stores Department Stores and May operated by a Bridal acquisitions prior to sellHot 100 Retailer ing off the latter); Kohl’s, which (Starbucks) has had explosive expansion in 10,241 STORES AUGUST 2007 S17 http://WWW.STORES.ORG

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of StORES Magazine - August 2007

Contents Executive Editor's Page President's Page Upfront NRF News Retail People Concept2Watch Supermarkets Cover Story Online Marketing In-Store Marketing RFID Data Management Payment Systems Software Loss Prevention E-Commerce Risk Management Communications Loyalty Marketing Human Resources Mobile Commerce Loeb Retail Letter Arts Update Point of View Advertising Index Retail Industry Calendar

StORES Magazine - August 2007

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