Diamond Shamrock making a return?

[jamcool]

I’m guessing the Valero name has never been really accepted in DS’s traditional markets (CO, NM, West Texas) and there were still a large number of DS stations in those markets.

[pseudo3d]

I’m guessing the Valero name has never been really accepted in DS’s traditional markets (CO, NM, West Texas) and there were still a large number of DS stations in those markets.

Diamond Shamrock was a major player in the 1990s and early 2000s in the rest of Texas. Admittedly, many of the gas stations were somewhat older, but they had a lot of pull in Houston where they bought out the locally based Stop N Go convenience stores (and ended up making it exclusive to their gas stations over the years, closing the stand-alone locations, including older locations they picked up from 7-Eleven and Circle K, which they bought out of the market), as well as Central Texas (where the Corner Store name was growing, even if it was only a DS brand).

On the other hand, Valero really laid the groundwork for Corner Store becoming a great convenience store brand in its own right (which Circle K ended), so I don't know.

[storewanderer]

I’m guessing the Valero name has never been really accepted in DS’s traditional markets (CO, NM, West Texas) and there were still a large number of DS stations in those markets.

Diamond Shamrock was a major player in the 1990s and early 2000s in the rest of Texas. Admittedly, many of the gas stations were somewhat older, but they had a lot of pull in Houston where they bought out the locally based Stop N Go convenience stores (and ended up making it exclusive to their gas stations over the years, closing the stand-alone locations, including older locations they picked up from 7-Eleven and Circle K, which they bought out of the market), as well as Central Texas (where the Corner Store name was growing, even if it was only a DS brand).

On the other hand, Valero really laid the groundwork for Corner Store becoming a great convenience store brand in its own right (which Circle K ended), so I don't know.

After Valero spun off Corner Store, Corner Store made some very bad acquisitions. Not only was what they acquired junk, but they did not rebrand any of it to their brand or programs.

That groundwork Valero laid for Corner Store was a store prototype that could have gone head to head with the top of the line c-store operators in the US like Quik Trip or Wawa. And the independent Corner Store company did build a number of nice new stores (some of which they inexplicably dumped or sold soon after opening even before selling the company to Circle K).

Too bad 7-Eleven didn't buy Corner Store. They'd still be busy dealing with that and wouldn't have gotten their hands on Speedway. Circle K would have been a much better fit for Speedway but there was pretty major issues with overlap in some very key territories like AZ and also the Holiday territory.

[pseudo3d]

Too bad 7-Eleven didn't buy Corner Store. They'd still be busy dealing with that and wouldn't have gotten their hands on Speedway. Circle K would have been a much better fit for Speedway but there was pretty major issues with overlap in some very key territories like AZ and also the Holiday territory.

Well, 7-Eleven has been a total mess in terms of what they acquire and rebrand. They started with the TETCO acquisition followed by the Speedy Stop acquisition (not all the stores, only most), which they rebranded with TETCO (which they had purchased a year or so before), dumped many of the TETCO stores within a few years (largely rural ones), then bought into Stripes (from Sunoco), which hadn't even started the process of actually rebranding the Rattlers' stores they bought out and had recently bought and rebranded Sac-N-Pac.

Basically, for a while, 7-Eleven was operating stores with three names in my city, none of which were actually 7-Eleven: Rattlers', Stripes, and TETCO...then started rebranding some of the Stripes-owned stores into 7-Eleven, but were missing many of the 7-Eleven programs (which TETCO actually had), then dumped the last Rattlers' in town (which kept the name, as opposed to closing or rebranding to something else...no idea on their other stores)...then bought the Raceway stores while all this was going on. Meanwhile, one store is still a Stripes and while it has 7-Eleven merchandise, still has Stripes-branded cups and bags of ice. What this all amounts to is six stores formerly or currently operating as Stripes, two stores formerly or currently operating as TETCO (though one did rebrand this month), and a converted Raceway...and none of them are new-builds.

In 10 years through mergers and acquisitions we have lost four entire convenience store chains to the 7-Eleven empire (Sac-N-Pac, TETCO, Stripes, and Rattlers').

[jamcool]

7-11 has always been thought of as a joke-dried out hot dogs, expensive items... Plus they seem to be in continuous conflict with their store franchisers.

[Edited by admin]

[storewanderer]

7-11 has always been thought of as a joke-dried out hot dogs, expensive items, third world store operators. Plus they seem to be in continuous conflict with their store franchisers.

These recent acquisitions have pushed a very high number of corporate operated stores onto 7-Eleven. I am concerned this will just end up as a giant refranchising program if the US-based management has any say in the matter. Japan better get some control over what is going on with this US operation. They need to develop a structure to run corporate stores. And if they want to run quality corporate c-stores, that type of a concept does not "fit" with the 7-Eleven brand in the US. The 7-Eleven brand in the US stands for old dirty franchised stores that are horribly inconsistent in condition and pricing. Some of the sites are good, of course, but many are terrible. Many should not have any brand. Just like hotel chains attempt to stay legitimate by purging outdated properties, 7-Eleven needs to do the same thing. Think Holiday Inn in the 00's and their massive purge of old 70's era exterior corridor hotels, now that brand builds new hotels that are perfectly decent to stay in and modern. 7-Eleven could get there but a major store purge needs to take place.