The news: 7-Eleven will shutter nearly 450 underperforming stores—roughly 3% of its North America footprint—as it adjusts its operations to account for consumers’ shifting preferences and behaviors in the convenience store category.

In addition to the store closures, the retailer expects to unlock $520 million in cost savings from the sale-leaseback of an untold number of its North America locations in a deal expected to close in February 2025.

The landscape is shifting: Consumers’ demands of c-stores are changing, thanks to deep-seated shifts in behavior such as the steady decline of cigarette smoking among the US population, the growing popularity of digital ordering, and the increasing importance of food as a motivating factor for c-store visits.