Dive Brief:
- Convenience retailer Casey’s General Stores has partnered with MarketDial, an analytics firm that helps c-stores, grocers and other retailers identify and understand their customers’ behaviors by running in-store tests, according to a Monday press release.
- MarketDial’s “test and learn” software is similar to A/B testing often used for e-commerce in brick-and-mortar retailers, a MarketDial spokesperson said in an email. It allows companies like Casey’s to experiment with changes on a smaller scale and see what the reaction is before rolling them out across its entire 2,400-plus-store footprint.
- Casey’s expects to use the software to “gain greater insights into how our strategic store initiatives perform and then use those insights to better inform our decisions,” Pierre Hakim, vice president of data and analytics for the company, said in the announcement.
Dive Insight:
With inflation and labor costs pressuring retailers’ bottom lines, making data-driven decisions can help operators keep their expenses in check.
Casey’s isn’t the first major c-store chain to partne with MarketDial. Kum & Go used the technology in the early days of COVID-19, working with MarketDial to determine the impact of its new mobile app amid the consumer shifts caused by the pandemic. Maverik also used MarketDial’s platform in 2018 after it was approached by a vendor to change the visual merchandising for its Mars candy products.
Casey’s did not respond by press time to an inquiry for more details on how it plans to use MarketDial’s software.
Ankeny, Iowa-based Casey’s is the third-largest c-store chain in the U.S. by store count with locations across 16 states through the center of the country. In the past several months, the company has also automated its call-in pizza ordering system and named a new chief information officer.
