The five-year facelift.(Editorial)(Brief Article)

This edition marks the fifth year in which we've been bringing you news and trends on the petroleum and convenience store industry from around the globe. In honor of this milestone, we decided to do something a little extra special for this anniversary issue -- a complete redesign. We felt that the magazine needed a new look since some of our content has changed in the past five years. I don't mean for this to alarm any of you. We still serve the same downstream business -- the owners, operators, distributors and suppliers of the petrol service stations, convenience stores and related service facilities throughout the world. We still have the same mission -- to produce a tool for industry communication that transcends national borders, a medium that disseminates and shares the news and information on important industry developments with petroleum and convenience store retailers everywhere.

As you have probably already noticed, we didn't keep much of anything from the original design. We felt that if we were going to do this, we should do it completely -- from the logo on the cover, to the advertiser's index on the last page.

I'd like to thank all of our editors and designers that put a lot of time and effort into this redesign. I'd also like to thank all of the readers that have offered their comments over the last year. Many of your suggestions were important throughout the redesign process. We always encourage you, our readers, to let us know what you think about this magazine. If you can take a minute out of your busy day and let us know what you think about the redesign we would really appreciate it. You will find a few questions on page 29 of this issue. Please e-mail your thoughts to us at dwight@mail.aip.com. Your comments are very important to us for the constant improvement of this publication.

ON THE COVER

The products that you offer in your stores should serve the needs of your customers (or potential customers). More people are using the Internet today than ever before, but not everyone can afford to purchase a computer and all of the extras needed to use the Internet. Several companies in our industry have taken a hard look at how to incorporate the Internet as a retailing tool, but none have mastered it yet. With the rollout of the new BP Connect c-store, the oil-giant BP has introduced a new eKiosk within its store. The eKiosk lets customers check out the latest news, traffic and weather, while also offering specials inside the store.

I'm not yet convinced that this is how every retailer should use the Internet, but you should at least see how BP is giving it a go in its new stores on page 14.