7-Eleven to buy Stripes

storewanderer
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Re: 7-Eleven to buy Stripes

Post by storewanderer »

The fuel branding is meaningless. 7-Eleven kept the 76 brand on some of the former Circle Ks they bought on the west coast from Pacific Convenience and Fuels, too. Since in a typical 7-Eleven franchise agreement, the gas operation is still handled (priced and inventory carried by) by 7-Eleven Corporation, the gas brand does not have any impact on the attached 7-Eleven Store at all from an operational perspective.

Eliminating back office support at Sunoco could mean many things it is hard to read into it at this time. If we hear they are rebranding the Stripes to 7-Eleven then I think we know what it meant. But they have not announced that yet.
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Re: 7-Eleven to buy Stripes

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote:The fuel branding is meaningless. 7-Eleven kept the 76 brand on some of the former Circle Ks they bought on the west coast from Pacific Convenience and Fuels, too. Since in a typical 7-Eleven franchise agreement, the gas operation is still handled (priced and inventory carried by) by 7-Eleven Corporation, the gas brand does not have any impact on the attached 7-Eleven Store at all from an operational perspective.

Eliminating back office support at Sunoco could mean many things it is hard to read into it at this time. If we hear they are rebranding the Stripes to 7-Eleven then I think we know what it meant. But they have not announced that yet.
I assume that Stripes will be rebranded to 7-Eleven, as is usual for 7-Eleven. The exception appeared to be TETCO and Speedy Stop, where they used TETCO in the Houston market (with only three stores in the entire market), though internally it's all 7-Eleven from receipts to advertising. With Stripes, the 7-Eleven name has enough "traction" to work in those markets. The real toss-up is what stores and what stores go. TETCO lost a number of small town stores, so there's precedent for that. Stripes is a mixed bag, there were the West Texas/Oklahoma stores which were ancient and are being disposed of. So looking at some of Stripes' work beyond that, we have

- The flagship stores built in the last few years built with Laredo Taco Co., these are fairly large stores that are 6k-7k square feet, much larger than a standard 7-Eleven at 2.5k square feet
- Sac-N-Pac, a San Marcos convenience store chain that was bought in the mid-2010s but only rebranded around late 2015. The modern stores, even in more isolated areas (like Fentress, Tx.) were kept, older, smaller stores got the axe. The newer stores weren't as big as modern Stripes, lacking LTC but still over the size of a 7-Eleven.
- Town & Country Food Stores was San Angelo. I don't know enough about it other than it got rebranded, but some of the locations seemed old.
- They also own some Quick Stuff stores, which were bought from Jack in the Box. They kept the branding, and these are in Texas and Louisiana. The name may be contractual so these will be likely be re-sold if the contract doesn't allow for it.
- Rattlers is a mixed bag and was bought by Sunoco itself. Some of the stores were in small towns with "window dressing" to make them more modern, some are large new builds (larger than average, about 4k square feet), and were often paired with Burger King (which the former owner franchised, and still holds franchise rights to). A few of the canopies have been rebranded as Sunoco and internally have been remerchandised with Stripes stuff but no actual rebrands yet.

There are going to be a significant number of stores in odd locations, too old, or too big for 7-Eleven. I'm a little surprised that Sunoco is focusing on layoffs and not on dismantling the store base that 7-Eleven will likely reject.
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Re: 7-Eleven to buy Stripes

Post by pseudo3d »

A few questions continue to abound about the sale.

- Sunoco is selling other properties which include "undeveloped sites", suggesting that there were more plots bought up for Stripes and those are now going away forever. [https://csnews.com/more-100-sunoco-lp-properties-sale] Oftentimes, companies will buy the undeveloped sites.
- Previous sales by 7-Eleven indicate that they don't like large (7k square foot range) stores, even as late as 2016. [https://csnews.com/7-eleven-puts-13-new ... tions-sale], this is bad news for Stripes since most of their newer stores pretty much fall into that range. When you peel off the more rural stores, the fast food co-brands, and the larger stores, there's not going to much left of that acquisition. Already it looks like Stripes is purging the smaller, more rural Rattlers stores.
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Re: 7-Eleven to buy Stripes

Post by pseudo3d »

https://csnews.com/post-acquisition-7-e ... e-two-fold

This article suggests that the existing store sites (at least East Coast) will be "put on the franchise model" as alluded to by storewanderer earlier in this thread. The only things that 7-Eleven really needs to do is try to expand Laredo Taco Co. to existing stores with taco grills, not the other way around (not sure if I mentioned it in this thread but I once overheard a conversation about two 7-Eleven employees arguing how to season tacos, one of them said to add more flavor because of customer complaints but the other insisted on doing on doing it by the book even if meant less seasoning), not close down Stripes because of their oversized square footage (except for maybe that 12,000 square foot store I mentioned), and to keep building to fight back against an expanding QuikTrip, especially since Corner Store will be going away (both as a brand and probably no new stores since Circle K is focusing on digesting them).
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Re: 7-Eleven to buy Stripes

Post by wnetmacman »

pseudo3d wrote: December 21st, 2017, 8:49 am The only things that 7-Eleven really needs to do is try to expand Laredo Taco Co. to existing stores with taco grills, not the other way around
Based on the three Louisiana stores, Laredo Taco, while being a pretty good idea, isn't doing well outside Texas. The two Lafayette Stripes stores have limited (severely) LT's hours while cutting back on portion sizes and service. When they first opened, they did well, but it went downhill pretty fast. Also, Stripes has cut ALL promotions of any kind in these stores, almost as if preparing them to fail.

I hope 7-Eleven can do something, but I do not have high hopes at this point.
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Re: 7-Eleven to buy Stripes

Post by pseudo3d »

wnetmacman wrote: December 21st, 2017, 9:39 am
pseudo3d wrote: December 21st, 2017, 8:49 am The only things that 7-Eleven really needs to do is try to expand Laredo Taco Co. to existing stores with taco grills, not the other way around
Based on the three Louisiana stores, Laredo Taco, while being a pretty good idea, isn't doing well outside Texas. The two Lafayette Stripes stores have limited (severely) LT's hours while cutting back on portion sizes and service. When they first opened, they did well, but it went downhill pretty fast. Also, Stripes has cut ALL promotions of any kind in these stores, almost as if preparing them to fail.

I hope 7-Eleven can do something, but I do not have high hopes at this point.
Supposedly, the prototype Laredo Taco Co. they opened in Pennsylvania (I know, right?) had an initially good reception. But yes, LTC already suffered heavily under Sunoco. When the Stripes near my parents' house, there was a promotional taco every month, but sometime after the Sunoco acquisition, the banner they used to promote tacos was just turned into a generic sign for drink prices. I think I already stated that based on what happened to White Hen Pantry, I don't have a lot of faith in 7-Eleven's foodservice offerings and what they can do with LTC.
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Re: 7-Eleven to buy Stripes

Post by storewanderer »

wnetmacman wrote: December 21st, 2017, 9:39 am
pseudo3d wrote: December 21st, 2017, 8:49 am The only things that 7-Eleven really needs to do is try to expand Laredo Taco Co. to existing stores with taco grills, not the other way around
Based on the three Louisiana stores, Laredo Taco, while being a pretty good idea, isn't doing well outside Texas. The two Lafayette Stripes stores have limited (severely) LT's hours while cutting back on portion sizes and service. When they first opened, they did well, but it went downhill pretty fast. Also, Stripes has cut ALL promotions of any kind in these stores, almost as if preparing them to fail.

I hope 7-Eleven can do something, but I do not have high hopes at this point.
Are we sure these 3 stores in LA were sold to 7-Eleven? There is some block of stores that did not go to 7-Eleven but instead will go to some other operator.

But no promotions sure sounds like 7-Eleven... at least Circle K throws in some foam cups and a 79 or 89 cent any size fountain drink promotion shortly after they arrive.
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Re: 7-Eleven to buy Stripes

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote: December 22nd, 2017, 12:07 am
wnetmacman wrote: December 21st, 2017, 9:39 am
pseudo3d wrote: December 21st, 2017, 8:49 am The only things that 7-Eleven really needs to do is try to expand Laredo Taco Co. to existing stores with taco grills, not the other way around
Based on the three Louisiana stores, Laredo Taco, while being a pretty good idea, isn't doing well outside Texas. The two Lafayette Stripes stores have limited (severely) LT's hours while cutting back on portion sizes and service. When they first opened, they did well, but it went downhill pretty fast. Also, Stripes has cut ALL promotions of any kind in these stores, almost as if preparing them to fail.

I hope 7-Eleven can do something, but I do not have high hopes at this point.
Are we sure these 3 stores in LA were sold to 7-Eleven? There is some block of stores that did not go to 7-Eleven but instead will go to some other operator.

But no promotions sure sounds like 7-Eleven... at least Circle K throws in some foam cups and a 79 or 89 cent any size fountain drink promotion shortly after they arrive.
The stores that will go to others are in West Texas and Oklahoma. Stripes hasn't been sold yet but it has definitely declined under Sunoco despite a big push to build stores in the last few years.
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Re: 7-Eleven to buy Stripes

Post by pseudo3d »

http://www.cspdailynews.com/mergers-acq ... 0-c-stores

The end is near. I'm surprised they aren't mentioning divestments in the overlapping markets, though only one market I can think of (Waco) really has actually has overlap. Circle K got away with keeping almost everything, so I suppose 7-Eleven will too (just as Stripes had when they bought Rattlers). My top 6 questions which will probably be answered one way or another by years end are...
1. Will 7-Eleven keep the Stripes name on stores?
2. Will 7-Eleven keep the larger Stripes stores at all?
3. A few years ago, Stripes acquired Sac-N-Pac out of San Marcos. A few years later, the stores were all either rebranded, closed, or sold off. The only exception is a Sac-N-Pac in Cedar Creek that still operates with their name and logo. I assume that is a franchised operation, will they keep that name or will they be forced to change?
4. A number of stores (mostly Rattlers) have co-branded food service operations (Wendy's, Burger King, KFC) connected to the store. Will 7-Eleven keep these stores or change them?
5. Several years ago, Susser acquired a number of "Quick Stuff" convenience stores from Jack in the Box that were co-branded with a Jack in the Box. What will 7-Eleven do with these?
6. Will 7-Eleven continue to expand in Susser's former market areas?
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Re: 7-Eleven to buy Stripes

Post by ctg23 »

Will 7-Eleven convert the Sunoco stores to the 7-Eleven brand? Are there any reasons they wouldn't?
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