The National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) has announced that sales in convenience stores in the US saw positive growth in the first half of 2018.
The trade association, which represents the convenience retailing industry, polled 2,106 stores in determining its findings, and pointed out a few key factors behind the positive figures.
An expanded offer in fresh and healthy food is part of the reason behind the growth, with 45% of the retailers polled citing health bars and 41% citing fruit and vegetables as the two biggest drivers in the sales rise.
That drive for healthy options is also evident in the drinks offering with water cited as a driver of present and future growth according to the NACS. It said that 46% of retailers expect still bottled water sales to increase and 42% expect sparkling bottled water sales to increase.
Record Optimism
Other factors cited by the NACS include low gas prices, warm summer weather and 'strong consumer confidence' all playing in tandem to deliver the sales growth.
According to retailers, this is likely to continue, with the sector posting an all-time high confidence in sales growth.
The NACS said that a 'record 86% of convenience retailers [indicate] they are optimistic about their business prospects over the third quarter, up three points from the last quarter and tied for the highest measured since NACS debuted the retailer sentiment survey in 2015'.
© 2018 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Matthieu Chassain. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
