urchase of an item they need often. Figure 5-3: The Fast Buying Cycle Let's consider the convenience store cycle. Consumers have certain categories of services and products that they need on a regular basis but at a rate and time that is difficult to anticipate. A customer may run out of bread or milk or may need a quick cup of coffee. These consumers define their shopping behavior more by their day-to-day activities and their travel schedules than anything else. Typically, they have certain routes they travel on a regular basis (from home to work, from work to school, etc.). For them, a convenience store is only useful if it is located near one of those routes and can be eXcellence in Telecommunications The Telco Churn Handbook accessed quickly enroute from one location to another. For the convenience market then, the shopping cycle is directly correlated with the customer's transportation habits and daily schedule. Convenience Store Churn Although the term is not used that often in the retail industry, how exactly would we define churn behavior in this kind of situation? As we already established in the Buick buyer example, we need to think about two kinds of churn, catastrophic churn (when the buyer breaks the normal cycle for some reason) and normal churn (customer selection that is part of the normal shopping cycle). In the convenience store case, catastrophic churn occurs when shoppers go well out of their way for something they need that their normal provider (convenience store) does not stock, a certain brand of cigarettes, for example. A customer may end up spending much extra time trying to find an alternative source. This extra time often generates negative feelings about the convenience store. Natural churn in the convenience store case happens when customers change their patterns (e.g., move to a new location, change jobs, etc.) and find that the convenience store is no longer convenient. Contrast the three-year car buying cycle with the daily convenience store cycle. Clearly, each industry has its o