The 2025 NACS Show featured 48 Education Sessions discussing just about every possible convenience-related topic. Whether you’re a small operator, a category manager, a supplier, a distributor, or the CEO of a major chain, the Education Sessions had you covered. Best of all, they are for the industry, by the industry, with topics chosen by industry leaders and speakers stepping up to share their insights. 

Here’s a small sample of the insights that were on display across three days in Chicago.

Making the Backbar the Spot for Pouches

The trend began little by little, but as time went on, it built from a whisper to a scream. Soon it was abundantly clear: Tobacco retailers could no longer lean on cigarettes to maintain margins and grow sales from behind the bar.

A stark evolution was coming to the category, partly driven by regulations, partly by changing consumer preferences. For convenience retailer Weigel’s, it was time to adjust the strategy and the set.

“We saw an acceleration in the rate of decline of the sale of traditional cigarettes, and we asked ourselves: How do we want to defend this category?” said Jessica Starnes, director of loyalty and tobacco category manager for Weigel’s, Knoxville, Tennessee. 

Since 2015, cigarette sales in c-stores have freefallen from 31% of inside store sales to less than 19% in 2024, according to the NACS CSX Convenience Benchmarking Database. During this same time, OTP (other tobacco products) percentage of sales has grown from 4.2% to 7.6%

An “explosive” period of innovation had come to vape and nicotine pouches, making them the most realistic avenue to transition sales. But something about vape didn’t sit well with Starnes. 

“We recognized that 70% of vapor sales come from the illicit market. That meant our sales opportunity was only 30% of the pie,” she said during a NACS Show Education Session titled “The Evolving Tobacco and Vape Landscape.”

Instead, Starnes and Weigel’s leaned into nicotine pouches.

“We knew we had an opportunity to be the nicotine pouch destination in our market,” she said. “That way, our opportunity was 100% of the market.”

To get there, Weigel’s:

• Resized and reorganized its backbar
• Expanded product variety
• Partnered with manufacturers
• Collaborated with wholesalers
• Engaged in proactive inventory reviews

The results show in a list of Weigel’s top tobacco products. Zyn pouches hold the No. 2 position just behind Marlboro cigarettes among best-selling behind-the-counter brands, while a list of the top 20 SKUs includes four nicotine pouches.

“Today, we think of ourselves as that nicotine pouch destination, and consumers seem to recognize that,” Starnes said.

Tapping Into Gen Z’s Snack Habits

“Snacks used to be something we thought of as something that fills the gaps for us. But the reality is that from 2020 and through today, snacks are everywhere. They are the meal; the meal is the snack. And we have reacted to this change. Snacks can be a moment of indulgence,” said Anna Kjerrumgaard, director, category management-center store at RaceTrac, during the NACS Show Education Session “The Snack Breakdown.”

“Intense and unique flavors like hot and spicy are not going anywhere. The category has been growing for years, and unique flavors like buffalo ranch, dill and spicy have all stood out to me. There are also some interesting crossover campaigns with LTOs, like Reese’s Oreos and Oreo Reese’s. Innovation within an item or subgroup lifts the entire subgroup. It doesn’t cannibalize an alternative item,” Kjerrumgaard said. The Reese’s-Oreo collaboration, for example, generated a 30% lift in RaceTrac’s total Oreo portfolio.

“We’ve learned that we had to win Gen Z. Gen Z will have the highest spending per capita by 2030, which is four years away. We need to begin speaking to Gen Z with the products in our stores. They care about digital engagement, they care about social and ethical responsibility,” Kjerrumgaard said.

Insights on Crime Reporting and Recording

“Hope isn’t a strategy,” said Josh Nylander, manager of retail asset protection investigations, EG America, during the Education Session “An Industry Approach to Crime Reporting and Recording.” 

When it comes to tracking crime across stores, he noted that “if you don’t have a management system in place, you’re really relying on what is hopefully a great game of telephone between operators to notice patterns.” 

Ultimately, as an operator facing various forms of loss prevention, the lesson is “you cannot manage what you don’t measure,” said Cory Lowe, PhD, director of research, Loss Prevention Research Council.

EG America tracks and categorizes criminal incidents through an in-house database, Nylander explained, although the company is looking into other software. Even a relatively simple system has allowed EG America to gain insights and data that helps the company customize its needs.

At Refuel Operating Company, “We use an online database, and we’re concurrently in the process of exploring some other options,” said Wes Pate, VP risk and loss prevention. “Additionally, we built some Power BI reporting that actually pulls that data out and heat maps it, showing us where the crime is and where it’s moving.”

For both companies, tracking data has helped them narrow in on specific issues with specific stores. “It’s really important that we don’t do a blanket solution. If you’ve got five locations and four of them don’t have an issue, well, then why are we doing the same thing at every location? We could do one thing here that would solve the issue,” Pate said.

Nylander added, “Acquiring better data has helped us sharpen our influence on operations. We’re able to catch and identify policy or conduct issues before they become heavier loss issues. It also helps us be quicker to support audits, to deploy physical security where it’s needed, when it’s needed and influence operational training as a whole.”

For those looking to build their own crime tracking management system, the advice from Nylander and Pate is the same: Keep it simple. “We could ask tons of questions, but it’s not relevant, and it’s not important, and so we’re trying to keep those forms for the necessary information. The standardized forms are mostly filled out by our store and field teams. It’s important to keep those forms simple to use and time efficient,” Pate explained.

Staying Ahead of Aging Underground Storage Tanks

More than one-third of underground storage tanks (UST) are over 30 years old, according to EPA data presented by the Transportation Energy Institute (TEI). This presents three major concerns for fuel retailers, said Jeff Hove, vice president of TEI, during the Education Session “Aging Infrastructure and Underground Storage Tanks.”  

• Increasing cost to maintain federally required financial responsibility, whether through state funds, private insurance or self-insurance.
• The potential for unsubstantiated, mandatory age thresholds for USTs—in other words, once the tank is 30 years old, it has to come out of the ground even if it’s still in good condition, placing a financial burden on retailers.
• The potential for new fuel mandates in certain states, such as E15 requirements, which could cause compatibility issues and the need to upgrade. 

“This is a national problem, but it’s also very state specific. If you’re in California, there are very few aged tanks, while in Ohio or Iowa, for example, there are a lot more,” noted Jim Rocco, environmental consultant at Sage Risk Solutions LLC. “I would urge retailers to look at this from a state regulatory perspective.” 

According to Rocco, some of the reasons retailers might need to close tanks include economic reasons or exiting the market, getting into alternative fuels, consolidating facilities or making upgrades. “On the regulatory side, if you have a significant release or changes in regulation, you may need to replace tanks. And then there’s the concept of a mandated upgrade or mandated replacement program.” 

Insurance companies are increasingly cautious about insuring older tanks, especially in states with stringent cleanup requirements. The cost of a typical cleanup averages $150,000, but can be much higher in states with zero tolerance for soil contamination, said Patrick Rounds, president and CEO of PMMIC Insurance. 

The panel advocated for risk-based approaches rather than blanket age mandates, which are costly and can hurt small and independent businesses, especially those in rural areas. Arbitrary age limits could lead to mass closures, loss of rural fuel access and financial strain on state funds, Rounds said. Risk-based approaches include enhanced leak detection, better maintenance and data-driven decision-making, which are key to ensuring tanks can continue to operate safely and efficiently, panelists agreed.

Considering Alternatives to Credit- and Debit-Card Payments

Credit- and debit-card payments in convenience stores have been a sore spot for retailers for years. And as use of cards continues to expand, fees have grown from a headache into a pounding migraine, said Lou Morsberger, founder of Payments Strategy Consulting.

Card-payment processing fees grew 19.6% last year and 26.6% the previous year, the former Circuit City and Capital One executive said during a NACS Show Education Session titled “The Future of Payments (and Swipe Fees).”

Today, many merchants are counting on legislation to bring down swipe fees. The strongest opportunity today is the pending Credit Card Competition Act. The act would require the largest U.S. banks to support at least two unaffiliated payment networks for their credit cards, increasing competition among networks like Visa and Mastercard. 

One way or another, payment-industry leaders believe competition is necessary to bring true relief to the issue.

“For all the organized and regulatory pushback and efforts to minimize credit-card swipe fees, the solution to lowering costs may be to bring competition to the major banking institutions,” said Michael Curry, principal, Stablecoin Solutions at Spendcodes, a cardless point of sale that allows accepting Stablecoins at retail.

Morsberger noted that several new payment technologies are available to circumvent fees but that there’s a time lag in the adoption of those advances, particularly in c-stores.

With more than 80% of all purchases made in c-stores paid via credit or debit, and swipe fees hitting a record $187.2 billion in 2024, the need to access these technologies is more urgent than ever. 

“There’s plenty of opportunity to provide an alternative,” said Reed Luhtanen, executive director and CEO of the U.S. Faster Payments Council (FPC). “But most of these technologies are not used in most stores today.”

“The technology is available to most consumers,” Morsberger said. All it requires is access to the internet and adoption by retailers.

Many of those new options, often referred to as InstaPayments, still sound like jargon to the average consumer and probably many retailers. Among them:

• RTP networks: These are instant-payment networks that allow for 24/7, real-time payments between participating financial institutions.
• Zelle: The person-to-person payment network allows for fast transfers between bank accounts.
• Mobile payment apps: These include Venmo, PayPal, and Cash App, allowing users to send and receive money.
• Stablecoin: A type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a stable value.
• Same-Day ACH: An option to send and receive automated clearinghouse transfers within the same business day.

Morsberger said he believes ACH holds the most promise, as it gives retailers the option to create their own digital wallets. “If we can put the payment method into a digital wallet, that becomes the hub that unifies loyalty with the payment method,” he said.

The challenge that keeps these alternative payment methods from becoming commonplace, however, is, simple: How do you get people to use them?

Payment leaders on the panel urged retailers to combine their efforts and throw their combined weight behind a preferred payment method.

Sign up to be notified when registration opens for the 2026 NACS Show, taking place October 7-9 in Las Vegas.