How to Get Your Product Into Gas Stations: A Supplier’s Playbook

Gas stations are one of the highest-turn, lowest-friction retail channels in America — and one of the most misunderstood by emerging brands. There are roughly 150,000 fueling locations in the U.S., the large majority of them attached to a convenience store, and the average shopper walks in with a two-minute buying window and a wallet already open. If your product fits that window, the volume is enormous. If it doesn’t, no amount of marketing spend will fix it.

This guide walks through how to get your product into gas stations the way distributors and c-store buyers actually evaluate it: the ownership structure you’re really pitching, the pack and price math that decides your fate, and the route to shelf that gets you tested in weeks instead of quarters.

Why Gas Stations Are a Different Sale Than Grocery

Grocery buyers plan around category resets that happen once or twice a year. They think in linear feet, promotional calendars, and 52-week velocity data. Gas station and convenience buyers think in something much narrower: dollars per facing per week, and whether a product moves before the next delivery truck arrives.

That difference changes everything about your pitch. In grocery, a slow-but-premium item can survive on margin. In a c-store, a slow item gets pulled at the next reset because the space it occupies is the most expensive real estate per square foot in retail. The store isn’t being harsh — it simply cannot afford dead inventory in a 2,400 square foot box that also has to hold cigarettes, fountain drinks, energy, salty snacks, candy, auto supplies, and a hot food program.

The practical takeaway: everything you present should be framed around turns, not features. A buyer who hears “this is a clean-label functional beverage with adaptogens” is being asked to do the math themselves. A buyer who hears “this does 4 to 6 units per store per week at a 42% margin, and here’s the register data from 30 stores proving it” is being handed the answer.

Know Which Kind of Gas Station You’re Actually Pitching

“Gas stations” is not one channel. It’s at least four, and they buy in completely different ways.

Major oil-branded corporate stores. Shell, BP, Chevron, and ExxonMobil-branded locations that are company-operated. Decisions are centralized, timelines run 6 to 18 months, and category managers usually require EDI, insurance certificates, and slotting.

Large chain operators. Casey’s, Wawa, QuikTrip, Sheetz, RaceTrac. These are sophisticated retailers with their own category management teams and, often, their own distribution centers. They’re extremely attractive but they are not an entry point for a brand without proven velocity.

Franchised and licensed locations. Many branded stations are owned by independent franchisees who control a meaningful slice of their own planogram — particularly in impulse, novelty, and grab-and-go. Our 7-Eleven submission guide covers how this split works at one of the largest banners.

Independent single-store and small-group operators. Tens of thousands of unbranded or locally branded stations where the owner is the buyer. Decisions can happen in a single conversation, and this is where nearly every successful c-store brand starts.

If you’re early, target the bottom two tiers first. They give you the register data you’ll need to earn a meeting with the top two.

What Gas Station Buyers Actually Look For

Across thousands of buyer conversations, the same five filters come up again and again:

• Impulse price point. Most successful c-store items retail between $1.99 and $6.99. Above roughly $10, conversion drops off a cliff outside of a few categories like phone accessories and premium cigars.
• Retail margin of 35% to 50%. Below 30% and you’re competing with cigarettes for space while offering cigarette-level margin without cigarette-level traffic.
• Shelf-stability and long code life. Nine to twelve months minimum. Short-dated product creates shrink, and shrink kills reorders.
• Package that reads in one second. Front panel must communicate what it is, what it does, and why it’s different — from four feet away, at an angle, under fluorescent light.
• Small, sensible case pack. A store that has to buy 24 units to test you will usually just not test you.

Get Your Packaging and Pricing C-Store Ready

The single most common reason a promising product fails in this channel is that it was designed for a grocery shelf and never re-engineered for a c-store.

Start with pack size. Grocery favors multi-packs and value sizes; convenience favors single-serve. If your beverage ships in 12-packs of 16.9 oz bottles, you need a single-serve SKU with its own UPC before you pitch. If your snack is a 10 oz resealable bag, you need a 1.5 to 2.5 oz single-serve version.

Then work the margin math backward. Pick your target retail — say $3.49. A store needs roughly 40% margin, so their cost lands near $2.09. A distributor typically needs 15% to 25% on top of their cost, which puts your wholesale price around $1.60 to $1.75. Now check that against your landed COGS. If the math doesn’t leave you a viable margin, the answer is not to squeeze the retailer; it’s to re-engineer the pack or reconsider the channel.

Finally, plan your case configuration. Inner packs of 6 to 12 units let a store test without over-committing, and a shipper or counter display that arrives ready to place is worth more than any sell sheet. Retailers do not want to build your merchandising for you — a display that drops on the counter and works is a genuine competitive advantage.

The Fastest Route In: Work Through Distributors

Here is the structural reality of this channel: almost no gas station buys direct from a small brand. They buy from wholesalers and DSD route operators who already service them weekly. Trying to open 500 stores one owner at a time is a multi-year grind. Getting picked up by convenience store distributors who already have those stores on a route puts your product in front of hundreds of buyers at once, through a rep the owner already trusts.

There are two main models to understand. Warehouse distributors stock your product in a DC and fill store orders placed through a catalog or rep. DSD — direct store delivery — route operators physically drive to each store, place product, rotate stock, and take the reorder on the spot. For a new brand, DSD is usually the faster path to velocity because the rep is doing the selling and merchandising for you. Our breakdown of direct store delivery vs. warehouse distribution explains where each model wins.

If the distributor landscape is new to you, start with our primer on what a convenience store distributor is and how the tiers fit together.

How to Prepare Your Pitch Package

Whether you’re emailing a distributor or standing in front of an independent owner, you need the same five pieces. Assemble them before you reach out, not after.

1. A one-page sell sheet. Product photo, UPC, case pack, case dimensions and weight, wholesale cost, suggested retail, retailer margin, shelf life, and your contact information. One page. No brand manifesto.
2. Velocity proof. Even 10 stores of register data beats a beautiful deck. Scan data, reorder rates, or a signed letter from a store owner all count.
3. Samples that ship easily. A small, clean sample kit that a rep can hand to a buyer without explanation.
4. Compliance documents. Product liability insurance, nutritional panel or ingredient disclosure, and any category-specific certifications.
5. A clear promotional offer. Free-fill on the first order, a display allowance, or a buy-in discount. Something that makes saying yes cost the retailer nothing.

For the conversation itself, our guide on pitching independent shops covers the framing that tends to work with owner-operators.

What About Slotting Fees?

Slotting is much less common in independent convenience than in grocery or big box, which is one of the channel’s real advantages for emerging brands. Large chains may still ask for it, and franchise groups sometimes request a display allowance or a new-item fee. If you’re weighing an offer that includes one, read our explainer on how slotting fees work for emerging brands before you commit capital. As a rule: pay for placement only when you already have velocity data proving the placement will pay for itself.

Winning the Reorder

Getting in is the easy half. Staying in comes down to three habits.

First, check on your placement. Visit stores, or send a merchandising rep. Product buried behind a competitor’s display doesn’t sell, and stores rarely tell you — they just stop reordering.

Second, drive trial at the store level. Signage, shelf talkers, a limited-time price feature, or an in-store sampling day all move the needle far more cheaply than national advertising.

Third, treat the distributor rep as your customer. The rep decides which of the 3,000 items in their book to actively pitch on any given stop. Make their job easy — fast answers, clean paperwork, reliable fill rates, occasional spiffs — and they will sell for you.

Common Mistakes That Kill Gas Station Placements

• Pitching a grocery-sized pack into an impulse channel.
• Pricing above $10 without a category that supports it.
• Showing up with no UPC, no insurance, or no case dimensions.
• Chasing national chains before you have store-level velocity data.
• Assuming the first order is a win and then going silent for six months.
• Under-forecasting production and blowing a fill rate on your first real order.

Your Next Step

The path into gas stations is not mysterious — it’s mechanical. Build a single-serve pack, price it so everyone in the chain makes money, prove velocity in a handful of independent stores, and then use that data to get onto a distributor’s truck. From there, the route network does the scaling for you.

If you’re ready to put your product in front of buyers who service convenience and fuel locations nationwide, connect with our network of convenience store distributors and submit your product for review. If your item is a better fit for supermarkets and independent food stores, our grocery distributors network is the place to start instead.