The 2017 Australasian Association of Convenience Stores launched the 2017 State of the Industry (SOI) Report at series of events in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in early May.
According to the SOI Report, the Australian convenience industry is now valued at $8.4 billion (based on in-store sales, excluding petrol), according to the AACS State of the Industry Report 2017 released today, with an additional $85 million in revenue generated over the course of the year.
AACS CEO Jeff Rogut said: “The convenience channel recorded a positive result in 2017 amid challenging conditions where the impacts of several expected trends were felt more sharply. The importance of a quality food offer has been reinforced while the need for stores to offset declines in communications and travel ticket sales has long been anticipated,” Mr Rogut said.
“It puts the focus squarely on innovating to ensure convenience retailers and suppliers continue to provide an attractive value proposition and relevant product offer in the most convenient, customer-centric environment possible,” he said.
A few select points of note from the report:
- The growth in Total Food sales was 2.5% while Total Non-Food sales recorded a 0.1% decline, according to the AACS State of the Industry Report 2017.
- The convenience channel recorded an $88 million decline in value from three non-food categories in particular: communications, printed materials and travel tickets.
- The importance of legal tobacco to convenience stores and as a revenue generator for Government was underlined in the report, with the Tobacco category showing 3.4% growth in 2017, generating an additional $105 million in sales.
- The US convenience market, which represents $230 billion in merchandise sales, across approximately 160,000 stores, grew just 1.7% in 2017.
Looking forward, projections for Convenience 2030:
While there’s a general consensus of the opportunities to be capitalised upon, and threats to be managed, there’s equally a consensus that no-one really knows where the industry will be by 2030.
Mr Rogut said: “The key question for us as an industry is how do we tap into these trends? New opportunities for the sector identified in Convenience 2030 included forming strategic partnerships, attracting new customer segments, reinforcing the true value of convenience, innovating cautiously and reframing threats as opportunities”.
“How our industry takes advantage of these opportunities will determine the success or otherwise of convenience operators over the next 12 years. What we do know is that resting on our laurels won’t suffice, and certainly the industry has demonstrated its willingness and enthusiasm to tackle the challenges head on,” he said.
The complete AACS State of the Industry Report 2017 is available to AACS members as part of their membership in the ‘members section’ of the AACS website, and for purchase by non-AACS members for $2900.00 inc. GST.
