Scottish Local Retailer of the Year Mahmood Saleem visited NACS in Chicago last month as part of his Reward for being crowned the nation’s top retailer. SLR caught up with him on his return to find out how his trip went.
The SLR Rewards are unique in the UK convenience industry awards calendar in providing every winner with a fantastic Reward for their success – but the Rewards don’t come any bigger than the one handed out to the Scottish Local Retailer of the Year: a trip to NACS in the US to visit the world’s largest convenience and forecourt conference.
This year’s event was held last month in Chicago and reigning Scottish Local Retailer of the Year, Mahmood Saleem, duly jetted across the Atlantic to enjoy a spectacular five-day trip and take in the very best the US industry has to offer.
It provided a unique opportunity for Mahmood, who runs the truly outstanding Ardeer Services forecourt business in Stevenston in Ayrshire, to experience a whole new world of retailing while enjoying a packed agenda of talks, exhibitions, networking and store visits.
“It was an absolutely fantastic trip to Chicago to be able to attend the NACS conference. I can’t thank SLR and category sponsor JTI enough for making it possible,” says Mahmood. “It’s one of those things that I would never have gotten around to otherwise, and I certainly learned a lot and brought back some new great ideas. The trip also got me excited and passionate about what I could do with my business.”
Mahmood says he particularly enjoyed the many education and workshop sessions but, with a special interest in forecourts, it was the chance to meet so many other people involved in the forecourt industry that really made the trip special for him.
He explains: “It’s a huge event so I had the chance to meet lots of exhibitors from the food and fuel industries. I met so many people and had the chance to share lots of experiences and discover new ideas.”
Mahmood reckons he met people from over 70 different nations, and had his eyes opened to how retailers in other countries and cultures are developing their businesses.
“I also had the chance to make a lot of new friends, and it wasn’t all about work,” he laughs. “But I was hugely impressed by how NACS managed to host such an amazing event with so many independent and chain store members.”
The big budget event also featured a range of top notch speakers, something that also helped inspire Mahmood and fill him with enthusiasm for where to go next with his own business.
He says: “I took a lot of inspiration from the many amazing speeches I had the chance to hear from the likes of Hall of Fame speaker and best-selling author Eric Chester; globally renowned business leader and author Chip Conley; NACS President and CEO Henry Armour; and even TV and film celebrity William Shatner!”
Mahmood says the conference really got him thinking about where the future might lie for forecourt and convenience retailing.
He says: “NACS really fired me about what is coming down the line. One thing that was very clear from the conference was that in the next decade the number of electric vehicles we see on the forecourt will be rising dramatically. That will be a major challenge to overcome. I also learned that the forecourt industry really has to work harder and be more creative about finding ways of keeping its existing customers and finding new ones. Competition is only going to get stiffer, so we need to be smarter about running our businesses.
“In my opinion the forecourt and convenience store sectors should start putting more thought into how to add fast, fresh and organic food to our stores, from serving fresh sandwiches to bakery, Kentucky Fried Chicken and freshly-made pizzas. I think we also need to focus much more on training our staff on to gain the knowledge of healthy food options and pass that to our customers.”
It’s fair to say that Mahmood’s trip to NACS was a real eye-opener for him and at SLR we are delighted to be able to make trips like this possible.
