Understand economic change at the 2009 Global Convenience Benchmarks

Insight partner, Fidel Gonzalez, gives readers some good reasons to attend Insight’s Global Convenience Benchmarks event in Dublin.

Retailers and suppliers need to know what economic change means for their businesses, according to Fidel Gonzalez, partner at Insight, organiser of the Global Convenience Benchmarks event in Dublin.

“We’ve carefully geared the conference content to provide real solutions,” he says. “I’m confident that our event will help them understand some radically new consumer behaviours and will case study current market best practice.”

Many challenges are global ones, Gonzalez says. “Retailers everywhere are making careful study of shopper needs,” he says.

Wawa and Total will present on the US market and France, respectively. Exxon Mobil and ADM Londis in Ireland will discuss how their companies are evolving to meet the needs of a Dublin market whose customer base has changed dramatically over the last two years.

Gonzalez adds: “We’ve also invited international shopper research experts TNS Magasin and HIM! to present what their latest research suggests for c-store ranges, layouts and communication.

“In addition, Greg Hodge at Planet Retail will examine how European discounter growth and c-store market entry fits into the current market environment,” says Gonzalez.

Irish store tours are always popular. Delegates on store tours to Musgrave, Spar (BWG), Applegreen, Tesco, FreshCo, Exxon Mobil, Topaz, Exxon Mobil, M&S and Donnybrook Fair’s latest c-stores and petrol forecourts will see how the zest for innovation in the Irish market is still evident.

As well as seeing the latest Topaz forecourt, conference delegates will hear Frank Gleeson talk about the successful completion of the Topaz re-branding project.

Generating better ROI is a constant theme and, from the NACS Green Toolkit, the event will detail how international retailers have developed new ‘green to gold’ strategies which have seen reductions in energy costs of up to 40%.

In addition to the regular convenience conference, Insight’s new Global Petrol Forecourt conference day focuses on how petrol retailers can drive ROI on the fuel side.

It also features a case study of Applegreen’s successful mix of low fuel prices and high quality food and coffee, and a Tesco presentation on the successful management of bio-fuels.

Finally, with the global tobacco display ban now heading for Europe, Dave Bryans from the Canadian Association of Convenience Stores is visiting to share his industry’s difficult experiences with ‘dark tobacco’.

Register for Global Convenience Benchmarks' convenience and petrol forecourt conference before 15 January 2009 to benefit from a 15% discount.