Executive Interview with Danni Peirce, CEO 7-Eleven, part of the DFI Retail Group
7-Eleven Inc (7-Eleven), a subsidiary of Seven & i Holdings Co Ltd (Japan), is the largest convenience and fuel retailer in the world. The company operates through franchise and license models and through its franchisees, licensees and affiliates, has presence in Asia, Europe, Australia, and the Americas.
DFI Retail Group is a leading pan-Asian retailer, operating some 11,000 outlets with more than 5,000 stores operated by subsidiaries. The Group together with associates and joint ventures employed over 200,000 people with some 47,000 people employed by subsidiaries. Total annual revenue in 2023 exceeded US$26 billion. DFI Retail Group operates over 3,300 7-Eleven branded locations across multiple Asian countries.
If you follow the convenience retail industry, you will know that in North American, sales have traditionally been led by tobacco and fuel. Tobacco sales have been trending down for some years and fuel is sold at lower gross margins than products inside the stores. In response to these headwinds, 7-Eleven is focused on building its proportion of overall sales from store brands and food, announcing recently that it was reinventing Its $17B food business to be “more Japanese”. 7-Eleven is making changes based on “Tapin Kanri”, an approach to merchandising and operations which adapts food service and other items to meet the needs of local customers to attract customers.
7-Eleven invests significantly in its customers. In North America, its 7 Rewards program currently has 95 million members, while Hong Kong based yuu Rewards is setting new benchmarks in coalition loyalty. Membership is now about 5.1 million, with over 90% of members using the yuu Rewards app.
We had the unique opportunity to interview Danni Peirce, CEO 7-Eleven, DFI Retail Group. Danni has a remarkable work experience in retail, grocery and loyalty and was willing to talk about the details of how 7-Eleven is growing in Asia, the contracts between convenience retailing in US and Asia and how the 7-Eleven stores are becoming the hub of the local communities they serve.
Enjoy this wonderful interview and take note of the time stamps below to guide your time:
Time Stamps:
Start 1:42
2:50 – Danni’s background and her path to leadership at DFI Retail Group
5:05 – A glimpse into a "day in the life" at DFI Retail Group
7:10 – Contrasting Convenience Retailing in Asia and North America
10:38 – How customer experience at 7-Eleven stores have made them the “hub of the community”
14:06 – The role of payments in the 7-Eleven customer experience
15:00 – The origin of yuu Rewards and how 7-Eleven chose to adopt to the coalition model
18:22 – The importance of cross functional collaboration and executional focus in convenience retailing
19:19 – The importance of execution in retail
20:05 – Cross functional collaboration for retail success
21:53 – KPI’s and attribution of success for loyalty programs
24:20 – Optimizing ranging and assortment
26:49 – The Art and Science of data marketing
End – 29:10
Editor’s Note:
Danni Peirce is CEO 7-Eleven, part of the DFI Retail Group. She has held several key roles in retailing, grocery and was responsible for the launch of yuu Rewards in Hong Kong. She is a dynamic leader and a treat to have this opportunity to interview.
DFI recently announced its investment in Tecsa, indicative of expansion of its longstanding strategic partnership. You can read details of this announcement here. The minority equity investment by DFI is a powerful endorsement of Tecsa’s capabilities. Alongside Wesfarmers, Australia’s leading retailer, DFI is supporting the acceleration of Tecsa’s international expansion.
Tecsa was founded in 2019 by Tony Buffin, Dave Battiston, Koos Berkhout and Gerard Whelan with a vision to build superior in-house loyalty, analytics, and media capabilities for clients. Having previously set-up and run successful loyalty businesses like Air Miles, Nectar and Flybuys, Tecsa’s founders saw that many leading brands have the potential to achieve a step-change in the value realised from their loyalty programs.
Tecsa partners with market leading brands to make loyalty programs more profitable, build more powerful media solutions, and create unique customer data assets. Tecsa’s analytics platform OneViu powers sustained revenue and margin growth for retailers. Proprietary AI/ML algorithms generate valuable insights on the fly, revealing category performance patterns, optimising range, pricing, and promo strategies.
Following the successful launch of yuu Rewards in Hong Kong, Tecsa quickly built a global footprint with a team of experts spanning the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Tecsa has delivered highly profitable loyalty, media, and data solutions for clients across the world including Giant Eagle, Virgin, Scotiabank, Sobeys, Adidas, Uber, Wellcome, 7-Eleven, Al Rajhi Bank, Marks & Spencer, Norwegian Airlines, Strawberry Hotel Group, and many others.
