Convenience stores are playing a pivotal role in the contribution to profitability in the fuels retail environment. In order to increase market share that will lead to increased profits it is imperative to provide excellent customer service. Customer experience has been identified as the key construct in the modern retail environment to be addressed, in order to ensure a satisfied customer. It has been noted that customer experience is not measured in the convenience stores, but only at the pump stations and the carwash service points of Sasol garages. Sasol Oil has a fuels retail market share of 9% and it will be beneficial for the company to explore all avenues to increase market share since convenience stores contribute 25% towards the total profit of the company. A literature review was conducted to identify the important controllable elements of the total customer experience and the measuring instruments that can be used to measure these elements, which formed the basis of the empirical study. The measuring instruments discussed in the literature are Servqual, Kano and customised models. One of the dimensions of the total customer experience is service quality and a customised model was chosen as the measuring instrument of choice. Questionnaires were developed, based on the controllable elements of customer experience, and distributed via email and handouts. In total, 260 questionnaires were distributed with a response of 47.7%. Descriptive statistics and exploratory factor analysis were employed to analyse the data. The reliability of the questionnaire was tested using Cronbach alpha. Cronbach alpha values above the minimum requirements and a cumulative variance of only 47% was achieved. Conclusions were drawn from the empirical study and recommendations were made in the final chapter. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

Subjects, 432 convenience store cashiers, were divided into long-tenure and short-tenure groups. Chi-square analysis of application blank information for a weighting sample drawn from both groups revealed two items which significantly (p < .05) differentiated between the long tenure and short-tenure groups: number of previous jobs and full-time/part-time preference. Response weights were computed for these two items and used to calculate composite scores for the remaining holdout sample. A significant reduction in turnover would have occurred at the highest composite score level, if used as a hiring cut off. Results were tempered by several considerations, including a high percentage of false negatives and an insignificant linear relationship between composite scores and tenure.

D.Comm. / The South African Petroleum Industry is very competitive and is vital to the economic growth of the country. It is the basis for much of the nation's productivity, from keeping national transport flowing to producing products and services. The South African Petroleum Industry Association (SAPIA) was formed to further matters of common interest amongst competitive providers of Petroleum Industry Road Conveniences (PIRCs), and to promote good ethics, high industrial standards, competent governance and effective communications within the industry. PIRCs are distributed on most South African roads. This study emphasises and focuses on the location of PIRCs on national routes only. Various factors and theories, which influence the location of a PIRC, are analysed by means of a literature study, personal investigation and practical experience. Attention is given to the physical and legal aspects, which can influence the location of a PIRC. Thereafter, the macro, market and micro considerations are discussed. Particular attention is given to Porter's Five Forces of Competitiveness and the value chain.

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A new business model of unmanned convenience stores has been introduced to the retail industry in recent years. An unmanned convenience store is a store format where customers can carry out their errands without involvement of service personnel due to fully automated payment solutions. Because of the decreased need for employees, the new concepts can increase both efficiency and revenues as well as decrease costs for the companies. Due to low overhead costs, the store has the potential to be located both in rural and sparsely populated areas as well as in urban areas with growing population who values efficiency. Scholars have highlighted that such solutions may induce resistance among customers as they believe that it only serves the companies while harming the communities. Despite this, no previous research has studied consumer resistance towards unmanned convenience stores empirically.  The purpose of this thesis was to empirically examine the underlying factors that affect the level of consumer resistance towards unmanned convenience stores. This was done by investigating the relative importance of psychological-, functional- and individual barriers derived from existing literature regarding factors that hamper the adoption process of innovations. Thus, the following research question was formulated: “What are the underlying factors that affect the level of consumer resistance towards unmanned convenience stores?” The study focused on respondents that had no previous experience from unmanned convenience stores because of the apparent void in existing literature with such focus. To answer the research question, nine hypotheses were formulated and tested against the variable consumer resistance. A quantitative research design was applied where data was collected by distributing a survey to potential consumers in Sweden. In total, 172 respondents answered the survey where 131 respondents did not have previous experience of unmanned convenience stores. The data was analyzed through a regression analysis using ordinary least squares.  The result shows that need for interaction, perceived performance risk, lack of perceived convenience value and self-image incongruence positively influence consumer resistance in stated order of precedence. The results can be used as guidelines for companies trying to mitigate consumer resistance towards unmanned convenience stores. The final conceptual framework presented in this thesis can be used in future research to predict consumer resistance. Thus, this thesis contributes to the literature on consumer resistance by studying a new context still in its infancy.

This study measured the grocery shopping behavior of households through a hand delivered and hand retrieved questionnaire. The focus of this study was the identification of the convenience store as a place where grocery shoppers purchase fill-in grocery items between major supermarket trips. The survey measured the shopping behavior of households toward supermarkets and the shopping behavior of the households toward convenience stores. This study replicates the Sequence of Effects Model of grocery shopping behavior and a grocery shopping strategy typology to address the issue of how convenience store patrons differ from non patrons in their attitudes and behavior toward grocery shopping and in their attitudes and behavior toward their primary supermarkets. This research also addressed the differences in relationships with the primary convenience store among patrons with different rates of patronage. The attitude of grocery shoppers regarding their trust of supermarkets to have fair prices and quality products was found to influence their perception of their primary supermarkets. Grocery shoppers were also found to express an inverse relationship between the feelings of time pressure during fill-in grocery shopping trips and their perception of their primary supermarkets. The typology of grocery shoppers was found to describe different convenience store patrons as well as supermarket patrons. Typology membership indicates the likelihood of a shopper being a convenience store patron. Convenience store patrons were found to give lower evaluations to their primary supermarkets, to feel greater time pressure during fill-in shopping, and to be less involved in information search than non patrons. They were also found to have larger evoked sets than grocery shoppers who do not patronize convenience stores. Convenience store patrons were found to hold greater feelings of personalization and socialization with their primary convenience store when they had greater frequency rates. The supermarket was found to be the store of choice for fill-in grocery shopping by an overwhelming majority of grocery shoppers. The study results show theoretical, methodological, and substantive implications concerning grocery shopping behavior and the patronage of convenience stores. This study concludes with suggestions for future research. / Ph. D.

US retailers lose over $30 billion in merchandise annually. Merchants also suffer billions more in losses of cash, supplies, time, equipment, and growing civil liability costs. In order to control these losses, retail companies use a combination of people, programs, and systems. A review of the literature indicates specialised loss prevention employees are an important part of many asset protection programs.;A major interest of managers is improving the efficiency of their crime and loss control processes, including loss prevention store detective programs. Retail managers commonly use job performance reviews to gauge the individual efficacy of store detectives. In addition to job training, and job output supervision, research has indicated certain stable characteristics of individuals helps explain actual job performance, making pre-employment selection a critical part of process improvement. However, relatively little attention has been devoted to the selection of in-store detectives in the literature.;Qualitative research was used to identify critical job tasks in order to develop and validate a specialised job performance instrument. The preliminary research with subject matter experts indicated four distinct job roles of store detectives. This job analysis also resulted in a new job performance rating instrument later tested in the quantitative phase of the project.;Subsequently, a quantitative study of 201 US store detectives (using the performance instrument in a concurrent validity design) developed four distinct selection models designed to help explain role-specific job performance variance. Four hypothesis regarding the relationship between biographical data, personality traits, cognitive ability and the four measures of job performance were tested using multiple and logistic regression. The four resulting models explained between 13% and 23% of the variance in detective job performance measures.;Implications of the project's findings, and suggestions are also discussed in context t the current sample, as well as prior work in pre-employment selection research.

The Village Market is a nonprofit Healthy Corner Store that has been open since May of 2011 in the mixed-use, mixed-income New Columbia housing development in Portland, Oregon's Portsmouth neighborhood. The venture began as a "community-led" effort in partnership with Janus Youth Programs and Home Forward. The project was conceived after a private enterprise in the small grocery space designed into the development failed, leaving the neighborhood without easy access to healthy foods. This dissertation is a case study of the development process, the operation of the market, and the degree to which it addresses food justice and health equity concerns, among others, of residents. It is a case study of the Healthy Corner Store movement that uses food regime theory and political economy perspectives to critically examine the translation of Healthy Corner Store movement theory into practice, highlighting the perspectives of New Columbia residents on the endeavor. It explores the transition of the store from a community-led project to a management-led social enterprise, and the impacts of that approach on local autonomy, food justice, health equity as well as its successes and shortcomings. The store's situation in a mixed-income community meant that it had a particularly diverse set of expectations to navigate, and the changes to the store over time reflect Village Market's growing understanding of the implications of that situation but also a limited capacity to accommodate residents' differing tastes and the price sensitivity that many of them exhibit in their shopping habits.

[pt] É devido a um aspecto de inovação e mudança no comportamento do consumidor que o mercado varejista vêm se modificando ao longo do tempo e criando novos formatos de lojas físicas. Um exemplo, são as lojas de bairro, pequenas e especializadas, que visam o atendimento de conveniência e buscam aproveitar da melhor forma possível os espaços físicos em localidades estratégicas. Porém, para gerenciar o estoque de mercadorias em um espaço reduzido e limitado se faz necessário também focar na melhoria da gestão dos estoques, com o intuito de melhor atender aos clientes e de evitar desperdícios com excessos e perdas de vendas com as rupturas. Dessa forma, o objetivo deste trabalho é analisar o cenário dos estoques existentes de nove lojas de conveniência de uma rede varejista brasileira e, utilizando um modelo tradicional de gestão de estoques presente na literatura, encontrar respostas para as questões de, quando pedir e o quanto pedir de mercadoria. Além disso, esta pesquisa ainda acrescenta a indagação de o quanto deve ser mantido de estoque de segurança para evitar o desbalanceamento do mesmo e, para responder a estas perguntas, é necessário lidar com o equilíbrio entre custos, nível de serviço e espaço físico disponível. Os resultados do estudo agregam os valores encontrados com os cálculos quantitativos juntamente com uma análise qualitativa com relação ao espaço existente nas lojas analisadas. E, as conclusões foram que para o equilíbrio entre custo, nível de serviço e limitação de espaço físico os valores de ponto de reposição e tamanho de lote seriam suficientes para um nível de serviço de 95 por cento. / [en] It is due to an aspect of innovation and change in consumer behavior that the retail market has been changing over time and creating new physical store formats. One example is neighborhood stores, which are small and specialized, which aim to serve convenience and seek to make the best use of physical spaces in strategic locations. However, in order to manage the inventory of goods in a small and limited space, it is also necessary to focus on improving inventory management, in order to serve customers and to avoid excess waste and sales losses due to disruptions. Thus, the objective of this paper is to study the existing inventory scenario of nine convenience stores of a Brazilian retail chain and, using the traditional inventory management model found in the literature, find answers to the questions of when to order and how much to order of merchandise. In addition, this research further raise the question of how much safety stock should been kept to avoid unbalance, and in order to answer these questions, it is necessary to address the balance between costs, service level and available physical space. The study results aggregate the values found with the quantitative calculations together with a qualitative analysis regarding the existing space in the analyzed stores. In addition, the conclusions were that for the balance between cost, service level and physical space limitation the replacement point values and lot size would be sufficient for a 95 per cent service level.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Pardee Rand Graduate School, 2007. / Title from title screen (viewed on June 13, 2008). This website links to the complete document in PDF format. Includes bibliographical references.