Casey’s General Stores To Buy 49 Locations In Oklahoma

Casey’s General Stores, Inc., which runs over 2,200 convenience stores in 16 states, said it struck a deal to buy 49 stores in Oklahoma from Circle K Stores Inc. for $39 million in cash, according to an announcement.

The deal includes 46 leased properties and three owned properties, which will be supplied by the retailer’s new distribution hub in Joplin, Missouri, according to the announcement.

Casey’s General Stores, which was established over five decades ago, has evolved into the fourth-biggest C-store retailer and the fifth-biggest pizza chain in the United States. It offers food, fuel and “friendly service” at each location, according to the announcement.

As previously reported by PYMNTS, C-stores thrive as the U.S.’s gas stations. They account for 63.7 percent of all fuel sold in the nation, and 80 percent of them bring together the food staples they’re renown for with the pumps for the business they’ve come to control.

Yet the number of U.S. C-stores dropped by 1.6 percent during 2020 as the pandemic depressed crucial fuel sales and physical retail contracted overall. However, a number of shops are fighting back with digital technology, among other enhancements.

“The sustained growth of online shopping and the long-term effects of the pandemic will continue to reshape consumer shopping routines and affect the overall retail landscape and make for extremely challenging times. [But] there are opportunities, especially for small retail, to implement more online offers and last-mile fulfillment to provide convenience however the customer defines it,” Andy Jones, vice chairman of research and technology at the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS), an industry trade association, said.

The organization’s 2021 NACS/Nielsen Convenience Industry Store Count discovered that America had 150,274 running C-stores as of December 2020, which was less than 152,720 a year earlier.

The group, in part, attributed the drop to less commuting amid the pandemic, which negatively impacted the fuel sales that a number of C-stores depend upon to attract shoppers.