How did 2018 shape up for the P&C industry? Convenience World asked key figures to reflect on the past year. This week: New Sunrise Managing Director Steve Cardinale (right).
Looking back at 2018, I would firstly like to thank our retailers, suppliers and our team for making it a wonderful year for New Sunrise on a number of levels. We’ve increased our net membership by 20 per cent, which is a sensational result. We now stand at 780 sites, but what is particularly pleasing is the high quality of the members we’re attracting to the group, joining the high quality of members we already have.
The reason for this growth can be attributed to our people and their ability to work with and add value to both our retailers and suppliers. If I was to drill down, I would say the following five points have been driving growth in sales and membership:
- Retail members investing in their business and working with our business managers to ensure the store is being set up to succeed.
- Great strategic partnerships and trading terms with all major suppliers.
- An exciting and innovative consumer-focused promotional and merchandising platform, which is driving conversion rates: converting pump-only customers to add-on shoppers, with our strong tactical activity increasing basket size. This has been supported by customer surveys.
- Better retailing activation underpinned by an incentive program rewarding great in-store merchandising standards and partnerships.
- Our ability to be flexible to meet our customers’ needs above a solid base program.
The retailers in ‘Passport to Profit’ (our incentive program) have led the way in growth. In the main these stores have grown at well above the market growth rate, and a pleasing consequence of this is that we’ve paid out a record amount in rebates to our members, as well as having a record number of retailers qualify to attend the study tour to Singapore this year.
This year, I believe, will be another good year for New Sunrise independents. We’ll continue to innovate with new and exciting promotions, continue to work closely with our trade partners and continue to support our members in all aspects of retailing, to help them buy better, but more importantly, sell smarter and bank more.
