7-Eleven Opening Its First Stores In Arizona In 25 years

[Alpha8472]

7-Eleven is touting its first Arizona stores in 25 years. Three stores for this year and 2 for early 2025.

These will be larger stores that are food forward with elements of the Evolution store format.

These are part of the 500 new stores between 2025 and 2027.

https://chainstoreage.com/7-eleven-plan ... rea-stores

[storewanderer]

7-Eleven is touting its first Arizona stores in 25 years. Three stores for this year and 2 for early 2025.

These will be larger stores that are food forward with elements of the Evolution store format.

These are part of the 500 new stores between 2025 and 2027.

https://chainstoreage.com/7-eleven-plan ... rea-stores

Given how many new build stores they've closed or are trying to close this doesn't seem to mean much.

Why are they even messing around with this in Phoenix with strong ongoing development of Quik Trip and Circle K locations?

[TempoNick]

They're just not that realistic about how damaged their brand is. Speedway has a presence in Arizona. They should build off of that.

[Alpha8472]

7-Eleven remodeled a store near me recently. Now it has locked glass cabinets. Alcohol is locked up, and you have to get an employee to unlock it. The new tile is now dirty and ugly looking. The materials 7-Eleven chose seems to show dirt right away. The old equipment is still there and it still has a 1980s vibe to it. They added some big TV screens advertising the fried food options, but it just comes off as information overload.

The food selection is just not appealing and the refrigerated food case looks awful. They have these packaged sandwiches, but the quality looks so bad.

Any other convenience store looks much more appealing. I guess 7-Eleven thinks that people will buy anything if it has a 7-Eleven logo on it.

There are Speedway stores in my area and somehow they manage to set themselves apart from 7-Eleven still.

[jamcool]

They're just not that realistic about how damaged their brand is. Speedway has a presence in Arizona. They should build off of that.

Speedway has but one store in Metro Phoenix. Most of their stores are in Tucson and N Arizona. The existing 7-11 stores in Phoenix are a ratty bunch of single store operators- some with gas, most without. QT and Circle K continue to build new stores, plus you have Jackson’s/ ExtraMile planning new stores. And there are local chains like Four Sons and Minute Mart, who put stores along the freeways and major roads.

[storewanderer]

They're just not that realistic about how damaged their brand is. Speedway has a presence in Arizona. They should build off of that.

There is one single Speedway in the far east part of Mesa. It is in a new growing area. It opened new right before 7-Eleven bought Speedway. It doesn't do much business. Since it runs with the high 7-Eleven pricing and took away Speedway's low cost fountain/frozen drink "any size cup" promotion, and does not have Speedy Cafe (it appears it was built with it, but it isn't there now), this store is not competitive for the Phoenix market to what Quik Trip and Circle K offer.

Speedway had a couple of additional sites around Mesa they were going to build stores but those seemed to get canceled once 7-Eleven took over. One of the sites are not a good site (way out East Main in Mesa in a "dead" feeling area), I forget the other site. Speedway planned to expand throughout Phoenix. Maybe 7-Eleven is just following up with those plans. The problem is they have wasted 3 years and I suspect dozens of new Circle K and Quik Trip locations have opened.

What 7-Eleven needs to do is turn the block back to the Speedway they bought. Take that format. Expand it. Bring back Speedway's private labels, fountain/frozen program (speedy pop/speedy freeze- any size cup at .89 or .99 or whatever), and just expand the Speedway chain. They would do very well and compete strongly against Circle K with the old Speedway offer. Their 7-Eleven offer- not so much.

I don't think either Speedway or 7-Eleven compete all that well against Quik Trip.

[ClownLoach]

They're just not that realistic about how damaged their brand is. Speedway has a presence in Arizona. They should build off of that.

There is one single Speedway in the far east part of Mesa. It is in a new growing area. It opened new right before 7-Eleven bought Speedway. It doesn't do much business. Since it runs with the high 7-Eleven pricing and took away Speedway's low cost fountain/frozen drink "any size cup" promotion, and does not have Speedy Cafe (it appears it was built with it, but it isn't there now), this store is not competitive for the Phoenix market to what Quik Trip and Circle K offer.

Speedway had a couple of additional sites around Mesa they were going to build stores but those seemed to get canceled once 7-Eleven took over. One of the sites are not a good site (way out East Main in Mesa in a "dead" feeling area), I forget the other site. Speedway planned to expand throughout Phoenix. Maybe 7-Eleven is just following up with those plans. The problem is they have wasted 3 years and I suspect dozens of new Circle K and Quik Trip locations have opened.

What 7-Eleven needs to do is turn the block back to the Speedway they bought. Take that format. Expand it. Bring back Speedway's private labels, fountain/frozen program (speedy pop/speedy freeze- any size cup at .89 or .99 or whatever), and just expand the Speedway chain. They would do very well and compete strongly against Circle K with the old Speedway offer. Their 7-Eleven offer- not so much.

I don't think either Speedway or 7-Eleven compete all that well against Quik Trip.

I've noticed that 7-Eleven is now running ads that are dual branded, with a large 7-Eleven logo and small Speedway underneath. Makes me think that they're going to phase out the Speedway name and finish the job of killing this superior concept. It wasn't the best C-Store chain, but it was a lot better than bottom of the barrel 7-Eleven. They should have been converting 7-Eleven stores to the Speedway concept instead, especially the pricing.

[storewanderer]

They're just not that realistic about how damaged their brand is. Speedway has a presence in Arizona. They should build off of that.

There is one single Speedway in the far east part of Mesa. It is in a new growing area. It opened new right before 7-Eleven bought Speedway. It doesn't do much business. Since it runs with the high 7-Eleven pricing and took away Speedway's low cost fountain/frozen drink "any size cup" promotion, and does not have Speedy Cafe (it appears it was built with it, but it isn't there now), this store is not competitive for the Phoenix market to what Quik Trip and Circle K offer.

Speedway had a couple of additional sites around Mesa they were going to build stores but those seemed to get canceled once 7-Eleven took over. One of the sites are not a good site (way out East Main in Mesa in a "dead" feeling area), I forget the other site. Speedway planned to expand throughout Phoenix. Maybe 7-Eleven is just following up with those plans. The problem is they have wasted 3 years and I suspect dozens of new Circle K and Quik Trip locations have opened.

What 7-Eleven needs to do is turn the block back to the Speedway they bought. Take that format. Expand it. Bring back Speedway's private labels, fountain/frozen program (speedy pop/speedy freeze- any size cup at .89 or .99 or whatever), and just expand the Speedway chain. They would do very well and compete strongly against Circle K with the old Speedway offer. Their 7-Eleven offer- not so much.

I don't think either Speedway or 7-Eleven compete all that well against Quik Trip.

I've noticed that 7-Eleven is now running ads that are dual branded, with a large 7-Eleven logo and small Speedway underneath. Makes me think that they're going to phase out the Speedway name and finish the job of killing this superior concept. It wasn't the best C-Store chain, but it was a lot better than bottom of the barrel 7-Eleven. They should have been converting 7-Eleven stores to the Speedway concept instead, especially the pricing.

They were supposed to start rebranding in 2021 and open new stores in Speedway markets as 7 Eleven but they didn't. They've even opened a few new stores as Speedway in the Midwest.

They still haven't merged the loyalty programs and they've set up a ghost IT system that is a copy of the 7-11 IT system but completely separate and slowly are converting Speedway Stores over to that system but most remain on the old Speedway system.

They were sure the wrong buyer for Speedway. Circle K would have been a much better fit. EG Group would have been better and I suspect all of US EG Group would have moved to the Speedway platform and concept (even if not rebranded).

So I can't tell what they're doing. I'm sure they'd like to rebrand. And in California, they should rebrand. But I'm not sure about anywhere else.