Article: Convenience stores set standard for retailers

A few years ago, you almost never heard anyone in the mainstream retail industry worry about competition from convenience stores.

Now, for executives at supermarkets, drugstores and discounters, the lowly convenience store ranks right up there with other rival retail channels.

Largely, it's because convenience stores offer two things traditional retailers have been rushing to add in recent years: convenience and food. It helps, too, that many convenience stores are cleaner, hipper, more focused and better managed than they used to be.

"For a while, convenience stores took the best from other retail channels," said Jeff Lenard, a spokesman for the National Association of Convenience Stores. ...

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