Loyalty program, Waves of Gratitude, Race Medals  gaming lockers, veterans boosts, special events adding to excitement also driving growth.

Holding the line on pricing despite pressures.

We have to earn the business.

Keying in on supporting Department of War readiness and fitness programs.  

Evolving to the Gift of Service, Community and Season with the campaign kicking off in October.

Appeals to suppliers to work to get tariff refunds for NEX products.  

NEXCOM’s EVP of Global Merchandising and Marketing, Rich Honiball, provided NEX’s perspectives in a wide-ranging presentation on July 1.

The session continues a multi-year tradition of transparency and partnership. Honiball credited his world-class business team and thanked the nearly 1,700 suppliers for propelling the NEX program.

Honiball said NEX has 40 buying groups that deal with nearly 1700 vendors, including food, merchandise, hotels and multiple other on-base support businesses.

While prices have gone up slightly, NEX is holding the line on prices compared to merchants outside the gate.

Honiball reported favorable returns from the reformatting of the main store operations, which comprise 37 percent of the business.

Growth areas include jewelry, toys, cameras, watches and sunglasses. The biggest decreases are in automotive, TV and video, women’s collections and alcohol.

NEX operates main and general stores, with the general stores providing general merchandise on a smaller scale. NEX also operates mission stores at recruiting and other specific Navy mission centers.

He highlighted five major initiatives: Navy Pride, Toys R Us, Jewelry, Beauty Zone and Consumer Tech.

Four of the five initiative stores outpaced other store operations, with the exception of Consumer Tech. NEX plans to open five more Toys R Us operations by October.

He said that the increased operating tempo of the fleet creates a lot of challenges and that’s why the NEX offerings are “a benefit and not only a business.”

Honiball appealed to suppliers to seek and pass tariff refunds on to NEX. “It’s a little investment and a huge impact.” Honiball noted that several suppliers have leaned forward, but many more need to.

Next Level Rewards is driving major sales gains, and NEX sees three million unique visitors. The 1.5 million members are driving most sales, with 900,000 active purchasers. He wants to focus on the other 600,000 who are not buying as much. The Next Level program is enabling strong analytics to help NEX fix the right problems. “We are not going to get the other 1.5 million just by speaking louder. We need to sharpen the value proposition,” he said. He added that two stores—Norfolk and Pearl Harbor—account for 18 percent of overall main store sales.

NEX is prototyping the Convenience Store of the Future with fast, seamless and intuitive offerings while expanding more proven successful programs.

NEX is going to deliver a new website platform in 2027. He highlighted Project NEXUS, which will provide an AI-driven enhanced patron experience, better analytics and agentic searches. “This is more than just a website. This is the digital enablement tool that will drive business—not just online, but at the store level.”

NEX has been working with an SPS cloud-based agentic capability built on the Salesforce cloud. Eighty-five percent of strategic vendors are onboarded, along with 80 percent of key vendors. Overall, 70 percent of vendors are included, and more than 10 percent are fully activated. “This is going to pay great dividends,” he said.

Honiball said he is doubling down on identifying vendor friction points to fully realize the potential of the effort. NEX is asking for 40 different item attributes to help consumers and store associates find what they want.

NEX is upping its game on military-connected events and encouraging active vendor participation in these special programs that draw hundreds of thousands of patrons.

As part of its “Supporting Those Who Serve” program, NEX is expanding its Veteran-owned brand showcase to help Veterans get their offerings off the ground. Honiball cited the Waves of Gratitude program, along with anchor partners and brand participation, as boosting efforts to gain patron participation and loyalty.

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