Every year, Convenience Store News surveys the industry’s leading executives to find out where technology investment is headed. Their 2026 report delivers a clear verdict: convenience store operators are putting customer-facing technology first. Loyalty programs, digital experiences, personalization, and AI are dominating agendas across the channel — and operators who move fastest are pulling ahead.
That’s a compelling story for c-store retailers. But for the distributors who supply them, there’s an equally important question hiding in those findings: if your retail customers are modernizing their operations, is your distribution infrastructure keeping pace? The technology priorities shaping the c-store channel in 2026 have direct implications for how distributors need to operate — and what tools they need to do it.
Priority #1: Loyalty and the Digital Customer Relationship
Loyalty technology dominated c-store technology news over the past twelve months and shows no signs of slowing down. Operators across the channel are investing in mobile apps, personalized rewards, and digital engagement tools designed to build a direct relationship with the end consumer. The goal is clear: own the customer relationship, drive repeat visits, and use data to deliver increasingly relevant offers.
For distributors, this trend has a supply chain dimension that often goes overlooked. When a c-store chain launches a new loyalty promotion — a limited-time discount, a bundled offer, a fuel reward tied to an in-store purchase — the velocity and mix of product demand can shift quickly. Distributors who can respond in real time, with accurate inventory visibility and flexible order management, become strategic partners in making those programs work. Those who can’t become a bottleneck.
CDR’s DAC ERP system gives distributors the inventory intelligence and order management agility to move in step with their retail customers’ promotional cycles — not scramble to catch up after the fact.
Priority #2: Digital Experiences and Frictionless Ordering
Convenience store operators are investing heavily in digital commerce — mobile ordering, self-checkout, pay-at-pump apps, and web-based customer portals that let consumers transact on their own terms. The expectation of frictionless, self-service interaction is spreading from consumer retail into every part of the supply chain.
Retail store operators increasingly expect the same seamless digital experience from their distributors that they’re trying to deliver to their own customers. They want to check pricing, place orders, review invoices, and manage returns without picking up the phone. They want to do it from any device, at any hour, without waiting for a sales rep to call back.
CDR’s DAC Portal was built exactly for this expectation. It’s a browser-based ordering and account management platform — no app installation required — that gives retail store customers direct access to real-time pricebooks, order entry, billing history, and business data from any connected device. When your customers can self-serve efficiently, your team spends less time on routine transactions and more time on relationship-building and growth.
Priority #3: AI and Data-Driven Decision Making
Artificial intelligence is moving from experimentation to practical application in the c-store channel. Operators are using AI for everything from customer behavior analysis and loyalty personalization to inventory forecasting and store operations. According to industry observers, the retailers getting the most value aren’t the ones chasing the flashiest AI headlines — they’re the ones who built solid data foundations first, then put AI to work on top of them.
The same principle holds for distributors. The value of AI in distribution — demand forecasting, dynamic replenishment, route optimization, sales analytics — depends entirely on the quality and accessibility of the underlying data. A distributor running on fragmented, siloed systems will find AI tools difficult to deploy and harder to trust. A distributor running on a purpose-built ERP with centralized, clean data is already positioned to leverage intelligence tools as they mature.
DAC ERP’s centralized analytics and reporting platform gives CDR customers the kind of integrated data infrastructure that makes intelligent decision-making possible today — and positions them to layer in AI-powered capabilities as the technology continues to evolve.
Priority #4: Back-Office Modernization to Enable Front-of-House Innovation
A consistent theme in the CSNews research is the tension between innovation ambition and operational reality. Many operators acknowledge that their existing technology stacks — often built on legacy, monolithic systems — don’t allow them to move as fast as the market demands. They want to innovate at the customer interface, but their back-office infrastructure can’t keep up.
The same challenge exists on the distribution side. When a distributor’s ERP is slow, inflexible, or poorly integrated with vendor systems and retail portals, the whole supply chain slows down. Operators notice. They notice when pricing is wrong, when orders arrive incomplete, when returns take too long to process, when reporting doesn’t match their own systems. In a competitive environment where retailers have options, operational friction from a distributor is a liability.
CDR has been building distribution-specific technology since 1978 — not adapting generic ERP software, but engineering solutions designed specifically for the convenience distribution environment. DAC’s integrated suite covers warehouse management, RF warehousing, dynamic replenishment, returns management, vendor relations, MSA MULTICAT reporting, and financial management in a single, cohesive platform. That depth of integration means fewer data hand-offs, fewer errors, and faster operations across the board.
The Distributor Opportunity in a Technology-Forward Channel
The 2026 technology priorities of c-store executives aren’t just a retail story. They’re a signal about what the channel is becoming — more digital, more data-driven, more demanding of operational precision throughout the supply chain. Distributors who read that signal correctly and invest in the right infrastructure will find themselves better positioned as strategic partners to their retail customers. Those who don’t will find the gap between retailer expectations and distributor capabilities growing wider.
The good news is that the technology to close that gap already exists. CDR Software’s DAC platform — and supporting solutions including SupplyLogic for smaller distributors and VMR Console for manufacturer reporting — gives convenience distributors the tools to operate at the speed and sophistication the modern c-store channel requires.
Ready to see how CDR Software can help your distribution operation keep pace with the channel’s evolving technology demands? Schedule a demo or contact our team to learn more about DAC ERP and the full CDR product suite.