Books, Reports, and Surveys

This month's newsletter is for all you data-heads and book-worms out there. In this issue we have the new 2009 CSNews Forecast Study, information about the NACS State of the Industry survey, and an article by our friend John Matthews of Gray Cat Enterprises who just authored a new book on local store marketing.

As always, we hope you continue to find our site and newsletter informative and useful. Don't forget about our community forum. I've recently changed the group permissions on the forum so guests can leave comments and feedback on posts. This means you no longer are required to create an account to leave your thoughts. All guest comments, however, will be reviewed before being posted. This is to reduce the amount of crummy massages and blatant garbage. So please, comment away!

Last, if you didn't read the mid-January update, I wanted to announce that I've started a personal thread called Topping Off (pretty clever, huh?) where I'll post my own thoughts in a blog-like fashion. I'll try to update it at least a few times a week. Be sure to check out the post on "RSS and Google Reader Explained". You'll be glad you did.

Did You Know?

When searching our database for gas stations for sale, you can sort the search results based on Asking Price, Inside Sales or Fuel Gallons.

By default, the search results are listed by date (the most recent additions appear on top). But what if you were looking for a station that does the most Inside Sales? Just click on the orange column header for "Inside Sales" and the results will be sorted in descending order. Click it again to sort in ascending order.

We Have the 2009 Convenience Store News Forecast Study

It's hot off the presses and we have it available for purchase on our products page. It's the 2009 Convenience Store News Industry Forecast Study and it is chock-full of data.

Using information supplied by the Nielsen Company and Trade Dimensions, the folks at CSNews have again gathered their forecast council at their headquarters in New York to pour over the mountains of data and make predictions about the year to come.

This study should benefit any person in the c-store industry who is charged with making purchase decisions. That includes retailers and distributors as well as people on the support side of the industry.

Are you interested in saving $15 off the purchase price? Read my post about the 2009 Forecast Study on the Community Forum.

Tips on Local Store Marketing

In this month's featured article, John Matthews of Gray Cat enterprises offers five simple tips that every retailer can use to boost sales and increase repeat customer business in the ever important three-mile radius.

Gray Cat Enterprises is more than just a consulting company. They offer strategic planning and marketing services focusing in the areas of: Retail Project Development, Consumer Goods Marketing, Local Store Marketing, Corporate Communications & Public Relations, and Magazine Services Consulting.

Matthews recently authored an 80-page manual on Local Store Marketing for retailers and has been featured in Convenience Store Decisions, Food Industry News, and a handful of other retailer educational magazines.

Matthews also penned a 40-page "Grand Opening Manual for Retailers", which is an instructional guide for creating exciting grand openings to attract new customers. Both titles can be found on his website.

Be sure to check out John Matthews's article, "Local Store Marketing for C-Stores". It's a must-read piece for all gas station owners and operators and you can only find it on GasStations.com.

CONFERENCES
Midwest Petroleum and Convenience Tradeshow - Indianapolis, Indiana
March 24 - 26, 2009

NACS State of the Industry Summit - Chicago, Illinois
April 6 - 8, 2009

Established Gas Station/C-Store

Location: Sister Bay, Wisconsin
Asking Price: $799,900
Inside Sales: $1,327,619
Gas Gallons: 90,056

Complete the NACS SOI Survey

If you are a current NACS member, you should be receiving your State of the Industry survey soon. Please take the time to complete the survey. NACS can't produce good results without good data, and they can't get good data without member participation.