Convenience Stores

This holiday season was one of the first real opportunities for retailers to flex their omnichannel muscle. A shorter-than-usual holiday season, combined with ongoing economic uncertainty, led consumers to turn to a variety of shopping channels in their search for the most efficient and cost-effective way to round out their gifting lists. Likewise, many shoppers also demonstrated a desire to return products across these various channels. But were retailers ready?

New York — Due to the holiday rush and related closings, sister publication Chain Store Age has extended the deadline for its 32nd annual Retail Store of the Year Design Competition until Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2014.

City of Commerce, Calif. — 99 Cents Only Stores opens its first store in Waco, Texas on Thursday, Jan. 9. The new store is approximately 13,000 square feet and will feature a perishable food department, including produce, dairy and frozen foods.

99 Cents Only Stores currently operates 339 extreme value retail stores consisting of 244 stores in California, 45 in Texas, 33 in Arizona, and 17 in Nevada.

Raj Jain, the former head of a joint venture between Walmart and Bharti Enterprises, has joined Bharti Retail as CEO.

Jain spent six years with the joint venture, Bharti Walmart, most recently serving as president of Walmart India. He left the joint venture in June 2013, four months before Walmart and Bharti announced they would independently pursue retail opportunities in India.

Joining Jain at Bharti Retail is his former joint venture colleague Panka Madan who will serve as CFO. Madan also served as CFO of Bharti Walmart but left the joint venture in 2012.

Food safety and compliance issues earned Walmart some unwanted attention this week after it was learned that snacks made with donkey meat in China were also found to contain fox meat.

Altoona, Pa. — David Woodley, VP of sales and marketing for convenience store chain Sheetz, has moved into the executive VP spot vacated by Louie Sheetz.

Aldi already has a reputation for low prices and now it wants to shore up shoppers’ perception of quality with a new brand called SimplyNature.

The operator of 1,300 no frills food stores said the chainwide introduction of SimplyNature is a reflection of its commitment to emphasize impressively high quality products at impossibly low prices. SimplyNature features simple foods such as cereal, honey, fruit bars, apple juice, pasta sauce and snacks that are made with only all-natural or organic ingredients.

David Woodley was elevated to the role of executive vice president of sales and marketing at the innovative and family owned Sheetz chain of 460 convenience stores.