Rethinking the Kwik-E-Mart

"What will 'convenience' stores look like in five years? What about 10? Some forward-thinking strategists at SuperAmerica, Holiday Stationstores, Kwik Trip or Oasis Markets had better be rethinking their prototype store model because the convenience retail landscape is going to be changing very dramatically and very quickly.

People coming by car to buy gas? Not likely! Store locations chosen to be convenient to the motoring public? Irrelevant! Highway accessibility? Old hat! In the years ahead, automobile traffic volume exposure, at least in urban areas, will not necessarily be the driving force behind convenience-retail siting decisions. Determining where station stops will be along transit corridors will be “the key to the castle” for convenience retailers.

Surely some innovative planners at the convenience-retail chains must have come to the realization by now that the new transit world will call for a different type of store model."