The success rates for new items introduced to the convenience store industry last year were down in all seven major product categories tracked in the Convenience Store News New Product Scorecard, but retailers nevertheless increased the number of new items on their shelves and increasingly relied on store associates to make consumers aware of those products.

According to the exclusive CSNews survey, the success rate of new products — that is, the percent of products reviewed by retailers that were still being sold on shelves after six months — was down between 3 and 11 percentage points across the major product categories last year.

This pdf contains the results of CSNews’ 2011 New Product Scorecard, including a dozen charts and tables, retailer verbatim comments, and analysis of number of new items added, favored promotion methods, how retailers judge success, percentage of new UPCs by category, and more.