Jeff Lenard:
So we visited the evolution stores, there’s some in our market in the DC area, but we went to Dallas to check out the evolution stores as part of our Ideas 2 Go videos that we showed at the NACS Show, and now they’re online. Can you kind of describe the whole idea of evolution? Obviously 7-Eleven has an enormous footprint in the industry, but the evolution stores are a growing part of that footprint.

Molly Long:
Evolution stores were established in 2019 and are a result of trying to reimagine our stores through our customer’s eyes. We want to attract new customers as well as increase the frequency of existing customers, and in doing so, improve the perception of the brand overall. So the original premise behind evolution stores is that we want to make sure that we create environments and platforms that help meet customers where they’re at and ideally anticipate those needs for the future.

Jeff Lenard:
Now, sometimes different companies have different words that just out. Did you guys have the name evolution, or was it, we want to do this and then somebody in a break or something like that said we should be calling them the evolution stores. What was that whole process like in coming up with a name?

Molly Long:
It was funny because we are a team that didn’t exist before necessarily inside of 7-Eleven. And so there was some back and forth trying to figure out what do we call this thing. Are we the store innovation team? There were a number of things kind of thrown about. It was actually a conversation with Chris Tanco, our COO, and myself—we were bouncing a few words around and then I can’t remember whether it was him or I came up with, what about evolution? And it just sort of clicked because it so closely articulated what we were trying to do, which is evolve our experience into where the customer was headed. Through that was sort of the birth of that term.

Jeff Lenard:
And 7-Eleven has—I mentioned enormous footprint—just opened store number 77,711. You have all these stores yet you are basically reinventing the whole idea of 7-Eleven. What are the things that are on the table in looking at evolution? What are things that are off the table in terms of looking at how do you create these evolution stores?

Molly Long:
Pretty much everything is on the table, within reason. And I think one of our governing filters is, can we see it eventually being scalable. If it’s not something that we could see being something that we could eventually roll out—it doesn’t have to be all stores but a great majority of stores—we tend to not try to focus on those ideas. We want to create things that can have the potential to go far and get rolled out systemwide. Our core mission is to reimagine the stores through the eyes of the customers using R&D. We want to gain an understanding, test new concepts, and then scale those concepts that are working. And so it’s everything from the in-store environment, the interior, the exterior, the types of materials that we use, the lighting, little things like music in-store that can add to the ambiance—all the way to actual platforms, giving people new things and reasons to come into 7-Eleven for fresh food and proprietary beverage, and new ways to make it easier for the operator to work on the store as well.

Molly Long:
How do they load the vault more efficiently? We’ve got two customers where one of them is the actual customer who’s shopping the store, and the other, importantly, is the operator. So how do we make sure we balance and come up with innovations that can help service both.

Jeff Lenard:
7-Eleven, I imagine, has more robust resources than other stores, but are things that might be similar in terms of what others can look at in how do you do research? Is it a combination of focus groups talking to customers? Is it having a clipboard and just watching people? What are some of the ways that you find out what customers want and what they’ll gravitate towards?

Molly Long:
Well, you mentioned a couple of elements that we definitely do and we’ve leaned on. And I think that there is no substitute for literally sitting inside of a store and just observing. You learn so much by absorbing and even working the store. And so I’ve challenged each member of my team to go out and actually work in these stores to help learn—especially the people who are developing these platforms—be the ones who are having to clean it on its weekly maintenance cycle, be the ones who are interacting with the customer and understanding and getting to see firsthand their questions that in and of itself makes us as a team so much smarter when it comes to developing these items. But we also, and in terms of anticipating, we look at competitors—we love looking at all the great things that the competition is doing.

Molly Long:
We look at people, and competitors are very broadly defined—not just c-store, but we look at all types of retail, even fashion and clothing retail to Home Goods and then obviously restaurants and food and beverage retailers. We’re interested in what others are doing and then looking at the customer in general. We use syndicated data and then we’ll use focus groups and some other research when stores open to walk them through a more regimented way to them through the store so we can get inside their head and understand what they think about different things, different aspects.

Jeff Lenard:
In the Ideas 2 Go video, we visited a couple different stores in Dallas. One was 5,000 square feet, and it was amazing. You walk in and there’s the tacos and you could smell them and see them making the taco shells. It was experiential and it was a big store, but you also had that same taco program that was working in a much smaller store that was about half the size. That store had an entirely different feel. Different, but no less cool. That one almost had more of a focus on music and video. And I don’t want to call it like a club, but there was an energy that all this music and video lent. It is pretty impressive in taking all the ideas, testing them in a living lab store, and then making them work in something half that size.

Molly Long:
I’d say that’s intentional. These aren’t the best of the best locations. We are very intentional about picking locations that we believe are—I guess I will use the term average locations or locations that could be representative of a broad swath of our potential locations. And not just that, but we also are trying to explore a diverse size of store as well, because it’s so important for us to understand how much can we stretch and how can we condense because we want to understand how big can we go, should we go? But when we need to, what happens when we go smaller and where are the puts and takes and what do we have to give up, and what does the customer think about those elements that we have to give up? Exploring the larger stores, the smaller stores, those are all part of this R&D effort that helps us get smarter and learn more about what’s working and how is it working and how do we then take that and apply it to something that ultimately we would want to scale.

Jeff Lenard:
You have evolution stores in a couple different markets, a dozen or two or maybe more now, will there be a point where it’s more common than not that stores will be evolutions? Where the brand will move that far forward, where everyone will have a focus on prepared food, where there is more of this club atmosphere? How far do you take this evolution to individual stores?

Molly Long:
We definitely didn’t set to do this for one store here, one store there, a handful of stores. I don’t have details that we can necessarily get into today, but I can tell you that there will be a point in time where our new stores coming out of the ground start to act and feel, look very different than they do today. And I can also say that we’re working hard on figuring out how to efficiently remodel existing stores so that they can start to feel and act in a way that we know our customers are looking for them to act.

Jeff Lenard:
And that’s just sometimes just pulling apart. It’s not redoing a whole store, but taking a little bit. I saw with the shelf lighting, or maybe it’s the cosmetics or something like that, is that, is that part of the plan?

Molly Long:
Exactly. It’s figuring out which elements resonate, which elements are most important and then using those to help drive your remodels.

Jeff Lenard:
Thinking about the stores that we visited, the one that was 5,000 square feet, you had a very unique way of introducing the store to the community. It’s not enough to have a store opening. You went big and you turned it into, I believe it was called gamers paradise. And you partnered with a gaming company and you had a celebrity there overnight and it was a total hangout. It was like the best living room ever. Can you describe what was it and how did you come up with that idea?

Molly Long:
So gamers paradise. I wish I could take credit for the idea. It was our awesome marketing department and they came to us with this idea. They had a partnership with Sony PlayStation, and were trying to figure out how do we bring that to life at the same time our Park and Abrams evolution store was opening up and they developed this idea that was literally the coolest thing ever. I would have killed for something like this, where you get to spend the night in a 7-Eleven and basically make it your playground for that whole period of time. Picture an awesome store, but then throw in mood lighting and a lounge area and bathroom amenities and all of these fun attention to detail things. Plus all you can drink Slurpees and snacks and basically free rein in the store. The lounge area had gaming chairs, where they were gaming with a gaming celebrity. Plus we had Dak Prescot, the quarterback for the Cowboys, and just all of these fun and exciting things that these lucky individuals got to experience. And then we were able to showcase that and help generate excitement for the grand opening at the same time. So it was otherworldly. I hadn’t quite seen anything like it, but they did a fantastic job.

Jeff Lenard:
And I assume that it’s as much for TV coverage or newspaper, and about social media, where I imagine it, as the kids say, blew up.

Molly Long:
Yes, indeed.

Jeff Lenard:
When looking at those types of ways to tell a different brand, you want to also maintain the joy and the love for the current brand. So I know when you talked about nothing is off the table, I would imagine that there are some things like Big Gulps and Slurpees, but maybe we’ll talk about presenting them a different way. At the evolution stores, it’s almost a food-forward store where traditionally convenience stores are thought of as beverage forward, but then you don’t have to necessarily combo meal like fountain beverage, you can get pretty much any type of beverage in the store, and there are dozens of options. So that was a very unique way when I went to the store, how it was communicated to me that it’s not you can’t sell value meals like number two, because it’s not just a dispense beverage. You can get coffee, you can get tea, you can get a Slurpee, but you get so many beverage choices to pair with your food. How do you tighten that up a little bit, I guess if you will, because there are so many options. You don’t want it to be paralyzing to someone.

Molly Long:
It’s a good question. And it’s a balance, right? One of the things that we’ve learned is how important customization is to customers and they don’t want settle. But at the same time, you also hear that with too many choices that also becomes paralyzing. And so it is going to be a balance that we have to strike. And fortunately, with our platforms, what we try to do is be intuitive about the way things are designed so that a customer can come in and get what they want, but be able to make the choices in a way that doesn’t become overwhelming. And I think it’s true that nothing is off the table in the sense that we will evaluate everything, but it is very important to us that we stay true to the ethos that is 7-Eleven. It’s an iconic 94-year-old brand that has a ton of rich history. That’s important to us to not throw away. And so we want to make sure that this new breed of 7-Eleven still hangs on to what makes it 7-Eleven and what makes it unique, but, but done in a way that becomes very relevant to a broader swath of, of customers.

Jeff Lenard:
95 years and counting. Not too far away from that 100th anniversary. I want to talk about space, Slurpees in space specifically. You can tell by that music we have a quick interruption here before we talk about Slurpees and space. We have a space trivia question for you, Molly. We are starting some trivia with our podcast and you are our first one testing this.

Molly Long:
I feel so excited about this.

Jeff Lenard:
Before we talk about Slurpees and space, I want to talk about astronauts who have been at the NACS Show. We’ve had three astronauts who have been at a NACS Show over the years. And one of those three was the last person to walk on the moon. Okay, the three astronauts we had were Jim Lovell, Alan Bean and Gene Cernan. Any thought on who was the last man to be on the moon?

Molly Long:
I believe it’s Gene Cernan. Is that right?

Jeff Lenard:
You are correct.

Molly Long:
I was not expecting to get it right. I was excited.

Jeff Lenard:
Yep. He was on Apollo 17 and he was the most recent of 12 people to walk on the moon. So congratulations, we started off our trivia on the right foot. So stress gone. Let’s talk a little bit more about space specifically. 7-Eleven, did something last year where a Slurpee went to space for the first time. I’ve seen the video, I’ve seen the pictures. Tell, tell us about that.

Molly Long:
To celebrate our 94th birthday, we delivered a Slurpee where no Slurpee has been before—space—which was I think creative idea. I think it was launched at a 7-Eleven store in Michigan, which is in the United States, Michigan is the Slurpee capital—the state that has the most Slurpee drinks. To be able to celebrate this historic launch, they commissioned a Slurpee in space themed mural as a thank you to the loyal customers, and it went up to space. I don’t know all the technical details, to be honest. A question I have, which I don’t have an answer to, is did it melt on the way up there and all of those little details that I don’t have the answers to. But I do know I was an excited customer as the rest of them just to sees Slurpee there. And it was certainly a proud moment to be part of team 7-Eleven to see something so iconic in the background of the earth.

Jeff Lenard:
It was cool to see the images and it’s not like one of these rocket ships that went off and had like two or three separations or something like that. This was all done with somewhat of a weather balloon that just took it back up and then it came back down.

Molly Long:
Right. Yes. Isn’t that incredible?

Jeff Lenard:
It’s going to be tough to top for 95 this year.

Molly Long:
What are we going to do for 95? Let alone 100.

Jeff Lenard:
Wrapping things up, we talked about the whole concept of evolution. We talked about how it translates to some of these smaller stores. And if it doesn’t work in an average store then, it may not work when you roll things out. You’re getting honest feedback and it’s moving the needle. Is there anything that you feel that 7-Eleven needs to be known for, or the evolution stores can drive 7-Eleven to be known for as more of these stores open up?

Molly Long:
Our vision at 7-Eleven in general is to be the first choice for convenience—anytime, anywhere. That’s our stated vision. For me, I want 7-Eleven to be known as the brand that is meeting customers where they’re at and even anticipating their needs. I want us to be recognized as a company that is evolving and constantly innovating to make our customers lives just a little easier. I want to introduce 7-Eleven as a relevant choice for people who don’t shop us today, as well as get those people who do shop us today, to come in more often. And the way we do that is through having a culture of R&D and innovation. That’s a part that I’m proud to have a role in in helping shape this future.

Jeff Lenard:
Anytime, anywhere is a phrase I probably heard a dozen times on my visit that is certain something that’s ingrained in the culture in terms of how evolution moves forward. Thank you for joining us today, Molly.

Molly Long:
Thank you so much for having me

Jeff Lenard:
And speaking of anytime, anywhere you can listen to the Convenience Matters podcast anytime anywhere on all kinds of interesting platforms. So subscribe, become a fan and take a listen, we always could use more. So thanks again, Molly, and thanks to you all for listening to Convenience Matters.

Speaker 1:
Convenience Matters is brought to you by NACS and produced in partnership with Human Factor. For more information, visit convenience.org.

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