The story behind the Shorti: Reviewing the Wawa book

 A few of former Wawa CEO Howard Stoekel’s claims in his book, The Wawa Way (co-written with Bob Andelman), may seem overblown or out-of-touch. It might be a bit of a stretch to agree with his assertions that Wawa is the “Cheers of convenience” or that the company is in the same league as Apple or Harley-Davidson.

Nonetheless, the countless tales of employee devotion — such as delivering a baby in the store’s aisles or holding a Thanksgiving dinner for a lonely regular — prove there’s a little more to Wawa than a brand known mostly for late-night drunk food and surcharge-free ATMs.

The Wawa Way dropped in time to mark the chain’s 50^th anniversary on April 16, and delivers a detailed business plan that focuses on “winning the hearts” of its customers — side note: The New York Times has called Wawa a “convenience cult” — instead of holding a rock-solid bottom line.

The book is more or less an account of the brand identity Stoeckel has crafted over his 25 years at the company. There are accounts of executive devotedness (a former CEO personally took a hoagie order for then-mayor Ed Rendell), elucidation of “six core values” (“do things right, do the right thing, have a passion for winning,” etc.), and enough goose analogies to choke, well, a goose (seriously, I’m not going to honk for my co-workers, nor is an expansion to Florida a “migration”).

I was impressed by Wawa’s fortitude and adaptability. The chain started in 1964 in order to sell its dairy products directly. It basically invented the concept of a convenience store, capitalizing on Pennsylvania’s “blue laws,” which prohibited grocery stores from staying open late and on weekends. With the opening of its deli in ‘69, Wawa found itself occupying a niche somewhere between convenience store, grocery and restaurant. Ever since, it’s used its “cluster strategy” (ever notice three Wawas on a mile stretch of road?) to reduce competition and to expand unimpeded in the mid-Atlantic.

The author discusses Wawa’s “Dark Days” in the early ‘90s when customer traffic decreased almost ten percent over the course of a few years. With new competition from markets and retail stores that were allowed extended hours, the chain had to find a way to innovate. The CEO at the time found an unlikely (but rather obvious) saving grace: cheap-as-hell cigarettes. The increased traffic caused by new cigarette advertising allowed the company to bounce back.  

All in all, it’s interesting to learn what took Wawa from humble beginnings to a snacks-and-stuff mega giant on the East Coast. It’s an easy spring read that’s sure to land you as king or queen of “random facts about southeastern Pennsylvania's foremost convenience chain” at your next Quizzo game. Hey, you never know.