Who would’ve thought? Here we are, telling each other that customers visit convenience stores to buy good, fresh, hot food – and the statistical data laughs at us and says “Alcohol, baby!”

‍Convenience stores excelled in alcohol sales in 2024, particularly with wine and spirits, taking share from drug stores, liquor stores, grocery and other channels, reported NIQ in its 2024 Beverage Alcohol Insights report, recapping off-premise sales trends for the 52 weeks ending December 28, 2024.

The convenience channel gained share of the alcohol market over leading challengers: liquor stores (-2.0% in full-year 2024), grocery and mass merchandisers (-0.7%), dollar and club stores (-0.5%). The convenience channel saw alcohol sales up 0.3% in 2024. That boosts c-stores’ share of spirits dollar sales to 10%. Not too shabby!

In wine, convenience grew its share of dollar sales 7.8% to account for 8% of the market. Beer, led by Modelo Especial, saw U.S. c-store sales of $512.0 million in the final full week of 2024, up 13% compared to the previous week, while liquor sales, driven by Fireball Whisky, grew 16% week over week to $82.4 million. Wine sales, led by La Marca Prosecco, rose 23% to $42.2 million in c-store sales.

All we can say is “I’ll drink to this news”!

What is the moral of this story? Other than reminding us that drinking and driving is a terrible idea, it tells us that people will buy what they need when they can conveniently find it, at a friendly price.

No matter how well we think we know what our customers want, we should never assume that we know how their tastes and preferences change over time. Customer preferences should be tested, analyzed, and measured. And this is a job better left to professionals who dedicate their lives to this time-consuming work – that most people actually find quite boring.

Ticon is a company of such professionals, and we have plenty of experience in location  analysis, location intelligence and road traffic data analysis. So, when you need support from an expert in customer demographics, to help you with providing the right product in the right areas, and in optimal locations, all you need to do is to make one call to Ticon.

We are waiting, and we’ll be happy to see you.