How do the SOI Summit numbers inform your business decisions?

What’s unique about the NACS State of the Industry Summit is it provides great statistics on how the industry is performing, where the opportunities and struggles are and how we can best prepare Maverik to continually exceed our customers’ expectations. There is no other event quite like it.

We have a broad distribution of stores across the Intermountain West, the part of the country that enjoys significant exposure to outdoor recreation and adventure activities, including mountain climbing, off-roading, canoeing, biking, skiing, camping and much more. In some cases, we feel our customers are unique, with more of a focus on “work hard, play hard,” but there are also so many commonalities around convenience that ring true across the country—and the world. We’re continually analyzing the industry and surveying our customers to ensure we’re innovating to meet the ever-changing needs of our adventure-enthusiast customers.

Our customers share many commonalities, but there is no typical customer. And there’s no typical store format. We’ve evolved from small country stores in rural communities to much larger store formats that feature our “Adventure’s First Stop” branding that captures our mission and spirit best.

The industry is evolving rapidly, and it is important to stay nimble and innovative in how we run our businesses. We realize customer demands and preferences are shifting, and retailers need to be ready to adapt to those changing needs. Technology also brings tremendous opportunity for innovation as well as new risks of disruption.

Any information that can be used to benchmark Maverik’s performance to that of our peers is incredibly valuable, which is the most exciting part of reviewing the data sets. We treat the State of the Industry Report as a scorecard that we update every year to measure our progress relative to our peers in the market. Regarding key performance metrics, for fuel, we rely heavily on fuel margin and volume. For in-store performance, we look at unit volume and margin. For store operations, we look at direct store operating expenses (especially labor) as well as break-even cents per gallon.

The pandemic and continued supply chain shortages have taught us a lot about how culture, teamwork and communication among our nearly 7,000 team members can yield amazing resilience, ingenuity and innovation to help us rise above uncertain times. Key areas of focus include in-store operational efficiency and using technology to provide flexibility for store operations, such as assisted checkout and back-office efficiency in areas like reporting and bookkeeping. Buying smartly and the ability to manage inventory so that customers can get what they expect will continue to offset supply chain disruptions. The ability to reinvest in our stores by remodeling, upgrading and building new stores will continue to help us serve our customers the best way possible.