THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 7, 1996 TAG: 9607060490
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MYLENE MANGALINDAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 94 lines
Remember when an eight-hour road trip forced you to eat a stale chicken sandwich wrapped in cellophane?
President and CEO Gus Miller of Miller Oil does.
``There's always been a half-hearted attempt to have food available to the motoring public,'' he said. ``It started with chicken, and then sandwiches in cellophane.''
Well, Miller Oil hopes to raise the standard of food choices for drivers in Hampton Roads. It recently opened a combination Miller Mart, Mobil gas station and Rally's at the corner of Independence Boulevard and Jericho Road.
The Virginia Beach location boasts the latest in convenience, a pit stop for burgers, gas and milk.
``The consumer awareness is higher because you can offer more choices to the customer as he's driving down the road,'' Miller said. ``We see it as the future of the industry as far as we're concerned.''
He's not the only one.
More and more people recognize the value of a quick stop, a store that gets customers in-and-out without a lot of hassle or delay. Already stressed by the rigors of jobs and family, dual-income parents, single mothers, busy professionals try to avoid the added irritation of getting trapped behind a woman who can't find her checkbook in line at the grocery cash register. Their time is valuable.
``Obviously the No. 1 product that convenience stores sell, you won't find on any shelf or counter. They sell time,'' said John Eul, an independent consultant who operates Business Solutions of Oxford, Mass.
Eul helps retailers, fast-food companies or gas distributors determine the cost and logistics of starting one of these multi-purpose convenience stops.
He cites two reasons for their growing popularity: consumers' ever-loosening control over their schedules and the opportunity for business people to share costs associated with a site.
The convenience store or gas station operator can share the real estate taxes, refrigeration bills, electricity bill and labor costs with two or more partners. And it makes sense for each partner because they can draw in more traffic, offer more products or services for a lower cost, and possibly expand into rural or less-populated areas where it wouldn't have been feasible before.
``It's another way to make that location sparkle,'' Eul said. ``The fast food people can go into more rural communities. People benefit by having access. So it's a win-win situation.''
The growth of these multi-purpose retail centers has soared in the last year, Eul said, although he didn't have any growth rates for the phenomenon because it crosses several industries. The average cost of a convenience store operation hits between $70,000 and $100,000 on average, depending upon what is offered. Some stands can range from as low as $30,000 to $150,000 based on equipment, land costs and other factors.
Convenience store stops aren't limited to gas, food and groceries. They sometimes include an automatic teller machine, a post office or dry cleaning drop-off facilities.
Norfolk-based Miller Oil led the commonwealth in packaging gasoline stations with convenience stores and nationally recognized fast-food stops, like McDonald's or Burger King. It is the local distributor of Mobil, Amoco and Exxon gasoline.
Miller is so optimistic about the future of gas stations partnered with fast food and convenience stores that his company has staked its future course on it. It recently hired a food director to manage the food portions of their Miller Mart stores, he said.
Miller has four sites already operating: an Arby's/Amoco/Miller Mart on Route 58 in Suffolk; an Arby's/Mobil/Miller Mart on Cedar Road in Chesapeake; a Rally's/Mobil/Miller Mart in Virginia Beach and a Burger King/Amoco/Miller Mart in Waverly.
Two more operations are on the drawing board, Miller said.
``The future of the Miller Mart is to provide a branded food for the customer rather than the old days where we had chicken in cellophane. We're going to have a food that's a name brand that's popular.''
The idea of selling a well-known ``brand'' of fast food like Burger King within or alongside gas and a convenience store seeped into those industries' consciousness around 1993 and 1994, said Frank Bedell, president of the Virginia Petroleum Jobbers Association in Richmond.
``The concept was fairly new at that time and of really great interest to our members,'' said Bedell, whose organization represents mostly gasoline and oil-related companies. ``We've had a few members who were just starting to experiment with branded fast food franchises in connection with convenience stores at that time.''
Miller Oil was a one-stop shopping pioneer.
In 1994, it introduced a drive-through Burger King/Miller Mart/Amoco gas station to the town of Waverly, population 2,223.
It literally cornered the market. There weren't many stores or corners to be found in that town, Miller said.
``The public, especially in a town like Waverly, loved it,'' he said.``We found we were reaching a broad spectrum of people.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
JIM WALKER/The Virginian-Pilot
The combo Mobil gas station, Miller Mart and Rally's on Independence
Boulevard in Virginia Beach is part of an all-in-one convenience
trend. by CNB