Carolyn Schnare:
We’ve all been the customer in a hurry with a line that never seems to move. We’ve also been the cashier with the customers staring you down trying to make time move faster. Technology has the ability to help make these moments move more quickly and efficiently. A NACS shopper survey found that 65% of frequent shoppers would be interested in technologies that allow for instant pay, skipping the line, and no cashier interaction. The industry term is ‘frictionless.’ These streamlined options can actually make time move faster…and customers will notice. Our guest later in the show says it well – giving customers more seconds in their day. Technology can be a big, multi-year implementation and it can be expensive. And sometimes, those combinations are a barrier to entry for some companies. A quote by Henry Ford, Founder of the Ford Motor Company really sticks with me for this episode: “If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got”. Where are convenience retailers on the implementation spectrum? What’s top of the list? NACS wanted to know and just completed a research project on technology trends in retail. I talked with my colleague and frequent Convenience Matters guest, Patrick Loftus, who found that the most forward-looking retailers planned as much as 6 years in the future for technology projects. They focused their time and budgets on customer-facing technology, even before COVID-19 made the rest of the retail world quickly do the same. We’ll talk more on that…after the break.

Donovan Woods:
This episode of Convenience Matters is brought to you by Gilbarco Veeder-Root, whether it’s outside, inside underground or in the cloud, Gilbarco has the solutions your site needs. Since 1865, Gilbarco has manufactured the world’s leading fueling and convenience store equipment and technology. If you are looking for a partner that you can trust, one with over 150 years of industry experience, you can learn more about Gilbarco at www.gilbarco.com.

Carolyn Schnare:
Welcome back. During the next half hour or so, we’re going to take a look at how technology can help propel a business into the next decade. We’re going to hear from 3 guests and get their take on the current state of technology use, some cool new things on the horizon and boots-on-the-ground use of those products. Let’s first take a look at where we are. Up first..

Patrick Loftus:
Patrick Loftus here with NACS. I am the Survey Research and Data Visualization Manager.

Carolyn Schnare:
Patrick is responsible for analyzing a number of topics for NACS research and you may remember him from our recent episodes on Last-Mile shopping and store energy usage. This latest research dug specifically into retailer technology. Tell us a little about this survey you’ve been working on.

Patrick Loftus:
The survey was called the Convenience Retail Technology Survey and the participants were CIO’s, digital experience leaders and strategy leaders representing over 100 different convenience retailers and over 35,000 stores. So I actually developed two reports for this survey. The titles are a bit of a mouthful, but the first one is called Building Convenience Retail Success Through Technology. And the second report is titled Convenience Retail Technology, Implementation Map, and RFP Guide. So what this report is all about is how convenience retailers are increasingly leveraging advanced technologies to remain successful now and into the future, looking at how retailers leverage this technology to boost internal efficiencies, and adapt to evolving customer needs is the most pivotal part of this research.

Carolyn Schnare:
Patrick, let’s start with how far in advance retailers are thinking about technology projects. What surprised you about what you heard?

Patrick Loftus:
So that was really one of the most important questions we asked in the survey. And the response to that question is really quite surprising. One out of five retailers stated they did not have a formalized technology roadmap and a further 19% stated their roadmap plan for one year or less. So a large portion of retailers – nearly two out of five – are either not charting technology path forward at all, or doing so for only the next 12 months. Positively though, 44% of retailers did state that there their roadmaps plan for two to three years ahead. I think what surprises most about where retailers are from a technology roadmap standpoint is just how few actually do have a, a long-standing, longer-term technology roadmap. So although 44% did state that their roadmap plan for two to three years ahead, roughly 20% stated that their roadmap plan for one year or less, and then almost a further 20% stated that they did not even have a technology roadmap at all. So retailers that did not have that longer-term technology roadmap were required to be more reactive to changes brought on by COVID-19. They were less likely to believe their company could quickly adapt to those required changes.

Carolyn Schnare:
Where are those tech leaders focusing their time now and into the future?

Patrick Loftus:
Yeah, so what our survey results really showed is that forward-looking companies are more focused on customer-facing-type technologies, however, where they actually started was on those operational challenges. So it was quite interesting when we took a look at those organizations that are now more focused on some of the shopper experience-related areas, is that across the last couple of years where they focus technology efforts was really around maintaining stock of in-demand products, looking at technologies that can help with inventory management making that process a little bit less manual, and maintaining cybersecurity and regulatory compliance. By focusing on all of those areas previously, they were then able to turn attention to those more customer experience focused areas, really looking to meet shopper expectations across more customer-driven challenges, such as loyalty benefit programs, making payments fast and easy, creating a more omni-channel experience for the customer and ensuring that the customer has a fast in-store shopping experience.

Carolyn Schnare:
So what you’re saying is we want to alleviate long lines, right?

Patrick Loftus:
I think when you think of a customer in that situation, is they’re going to bolt, they’re going to look somewhere else, or maybe they’re on their phone. You might even just be looking at where you can purchase that whatever you’re looking for quicker nearby, or maybe you can just buy it online to have it delivered to you. Investing in faster payment options, it kind of opens the, the customer’s wallet a little bit more. So instead of pulling out a card or cash, obviously we see a lot of customers are using mobile pay, or customers maybe looking for something like checkout-free technology. Sellf-checkout technology really helps to speed up that shopper experience so that faster in-store shopping experience can really be enhanced by some of those technologies I just mentioned a moment ago,

Carolyn Schnare:
What are retailers focusing their time and money on in the next two years in terms of customer-facing tech?

Patrick Loftus:
From a customer-facing technology standpoint, where retailers plan to focus in the next two years, it’s a little bit different than what we saw in the previous two years. So top of the list is really about making payments fast and easy. Self-checkout and checkout free technologies are going to be first and foremost for convenience retailers from a shopper experience standpoint, contactless shopping experiences, as well as online and mobile shopping experiences also bubbled towards the top.

Carolyn Schnare:
Patrick, you mentioned there are two reports. We talked a bit about the first report, which details the survey findings. Can you tell us a bit more about the second one and how to use it?

Patrick Loftus:
Our second report is a bit more visual in nature. This report is meant to serve as a bit of a benchmark in terms of the landscape of current technologies. So what we studied was 41 different technologies across six technology buckets. By looking at those 41 technologies across the six buckets, overly help retailers kind of understand is just where should I be prior prioritizing my technologies? Am I prioritizing technologies that are kind of either ahead or behind of other retailers at this time? So that benchmark is really what’s kind of key to the second part of the research and understanding. Am I implementing technologies that are maybe viewed as a little bit more or less difficult by others? Am I implementing technology that is still more in the exploring phase for a lot of retailers right now and might be a little bit more advanced for convenience retailers. Additionally, this report really comes in handy for understanding how you should put together your RFP and also what criteria you should use for actually evaluating technology providers in the future.

Carolyn Schnare:
Very valuable information, Patrick, thank you. You can find both of these reports at Convenience.org/Research. I’ve been around the convenience industry for nearly two decades and have worked with some of the best technology experts in retail. Without fail, they tell me that the most important component to a smooth rollout is to have a provider partner they can trust. Someone to guide the team through the process, to stick with them and help them start to finish, just like Patrick just told us. I wanted to talk with one such expert so I reached out to Chris Whitley who I’ve spoken in the past about fueling technology. Take it away, Chris.

Chris Whitley:
My name is Chris Whitley and Vice President of Marketing and Sales for Gilbarco Veeder-Root in North America. And Gilbarco Veeder-Root is the oldest manufacturer of gasoline dispensers and retail automation systems for the c-store market. And on the Veeder-Root side of our business, we’re the world leader in systems that deal with environmental issues and fuel monitoring underneath the blacktop or where the gas pumps go.

Carolyn Schnare:
I talked with Chris back in June of 2020 which was still early on in the global COVID-19 pandemic. He taught me some really interesting things about gas pump technology and I wanted to catch up with him on the consumer mindset on things like pumping gas, shopping in stores and the changes in attitudes since the global pandemic began.

Chris Whitley:
The last time that we interviewed like this, or had a discussion like this, was right at the front end of COVID. And at that time we were looking at it and, you know, we’d had that funny LinkedIn post that I did about the social media thing that has been about using dog poop bags, to be able to pump gas with…

Carolyn Schnare:
He’s talking about a story in the company blog referencing a popular social media post in which the author speculated that the virus that causes COVID-19 can be spread by touching the rubber splash guards on gas pump nozzles…

Chris Whitley:
And what really became apparent to us at that time that we started working on is we could see on that roadmap, there was going to be a lot of desire from consumers and retailers for more touchless type transactions. And when we stepped back from that, we took a different view of how can we do that on the forecourt. Pay at pump – or what we called CRIND at Gilbarco – the credit card readers and the gas pumps were probably one of the best earliest examples of a self-checkout type transaction and all the work that we had to do with that technology at the time, to make it where you could pay at the pump, get a receipt, we could handle exception conditions, in some cases, let you pay with cash out of the pump and get you on and off that site. Well, we got looking at it the beginning of COVID and we had people saying, well, they don’t want to touch the nozzle now until we get the full automation with robotics, there’s no way to eliminate the nozzle touch, but what about the grade select buttons?

Chris Whitley:
And what about things on the screen for buying car washes or saying whether you want a receipt or not, or in some cases, if you still have to enter your zip code? So we immediately pivoted on our roadmaps and said, we need to take a look at what we used to call our retail solutions group. And here in North America, we said, let’s put together more with a consumer focus around consumer solutions and make things touchless outside more so than they are now, and then really get focused on it inside. So as a consumer transitions from the forecourt to the store, how can we help our customer – the retailer – get a better position with their consumer customers on giving them a whole bunch of options. And once we roadmap those things out, it’s a lot easier than to sit back with the engineering and the technologist people and say, ‘okay, what are some of the things that we can use primarily as much off the shelf as we can?’

Chris Whitley:
We don’t want to be creating new, new technologies here that are gonna take a long time and make it more about the solutions that Gilbarco Veeter-Root can bring then the core technology and not get, you know, the more you can make your customer, not have to worry about the core technology, but can get them great solutions quickly. The better off you are. So we, we actually, that’s when we went and started experimenting with some work that we’re doing, which is web apps on the pump and how can we make the phone that’s in your hand, the complete interface for everything that you do on the pump. Let me do a great select, let me do my payment and any of the button presses, get them done by the phone at the time being, you still have to pick that nozzle up, but you can always use dog poop bag to do that.

Chris Whitley:
And, the rest of it, we can get them where they don’t have to deal with any of it. Then we turn our focus inside the store, and a lot of experimentation there. We did a lot of the similar things with a web app for the phone from an innovation standpoint to say, maybe let people just walk the store, scan things on their own, and you know, we’re still playing with that one a little bit. It hasn’t been as as strong as we thought, but again, because we were using off the shelf technology, we’re able to experiment, iterate very quickly, but we were able to take our point of sale device and quickly – you know, this started before COVID – there was interest in, in self-checkout, but it was almost the perfect storm because we got that product developed and released.

Chris Whitley:
It’s a common add on to our point of sale system. So nothing had to be created from scratch, but then with COVID hitting and then the labor shortage and everything that’s going on with it, it just really lined up for us. All of a sudden we’re in COVID, there’s a labor shortage and people don’t like going to places that have massive lines when they want something in the store. So by being able to put in some self-checkout lanes, you’ve got the smaller need for cashiers standing behind the counter. And again, you get peak periods, move much more volume through. So are our customer – the retailer – they’re going to make more money because of this increased sales. And then the consumers that go to those sites are going to be more apt to go back to them because they know that they can move through there a lot quicker.

Carolyn Schnare:
What’s one piece of advice that you could offer retailers as they look to the future in terms of technology,

Chris Whitley:
Frankly, it’s a little bit uncomfortable thinking about giving the retailer advice. Cause we do frankly, tend to look at it as we want to listen to them, hear where they’re going, what problems they’re dealing with, and then what we can do with more solutions to help them solve problems. I think if asked though we would always just say, what we hear the best advice anybody’s given a retailer is to look at their customer, the consumer, and make sure they’re aware of the trends and that they’re keeping things just plain easy, fast, and engaging as best they can for that consumer, because they’ll get repeat business out of that. And then from a technology standpoint, just make sure you’re talking to your technology and solution providers. We’ve got a lot of really interesting things that we see coming here shortly. We’re seeing Bluetooth beacons provide a lot of interesting use cases that we’re experiment with right now. And I think as we just look down the road, it’s going to be more about how do we help these retailers automate their workflow processes? How do we integrate with more and more different solutions that we may not provide that make things better? How do we use industry standards to do that as we’ve always done. And just look at that c-store – c-store of the future – it’s all about automating and helping with solutions, the retailer become more profitable by serving up more information while helping them with anything that we can on that consumer.

Carolyn Schnare:
Thanks, Chris. Now, how does it all come together? Let’s hear from a retailer. I had the pleasure of speaking with Karen Meyer, Retail Operations Manager for J & H Oil Company, which operates J & H Family Stores in Michigan in the upper midwest of the United States. Hi Karen, tell me a little about J & H Family stores.

Karen Meyer:
So over the past 50 years, J & H Oil Company has grown to supply hundreds of commercial customers, over 120 retail locations, 57 of which are company owned and operated, spanning throughout West Michigan.

Carolyn Schnare:
Karen what’s your everyday like?

Karen Meyer:
My everyday is I do the fuel pricing, the retail pricing, for all 57 locations, four times a day, 24 hours a day. I’ve been with J & H for 34 years. I’ve been in the business for 45 years. So I feel like I’ve seen a lot of technology used to do these gas prices, 20 stores on a little spreadsheet and check them off and write them all down. And now I’m never without my phone. And I send a price to the pumps and the sign right with my phone. So they’ve come a long way, a long way. I’m in charge of the POS, the upgrades, the programming, and the operations of the POS systems. I assist managers with daily paperwork and I’m involved in new builds, remodels, the large one is in the past two years, the self-checkouts.

Carolyn Schnare:
You sure have your hands full. We’ll get back to self-checkout in a few minutes, but in the meantime, technology seems to be top-of-mind for J & H. What are some real-world examples where these products really work and save time for customers?

Karen Meyer:
I ran a store this year for three months due to staffing shortages and didn’t have a manager. And we have implemented mobile pay, tap to pay, the app where you can sit in your car and turn the pump on. And all you have to do is get out, pump, get back in your car, all done. You don’t have to…you never have to touch the pump other than the handle and this location. It seemed a lot of customers always chose debit for their method of payment. So I noticed a lot of them had tap to pay on their cards. Your credit sale is completed in less than five seconds. So converting them to using tap to pay versus the debit end of the transaction.

Carolyn Schnare:
Let’s go back to self-checkout. I was at a convenience store this weekend with my daughter and this store had self-checkout and she said “self-checkout at a convenience store?” Yes, little one, the future has arrived! I’m sure she’s not the only one who has that reaction. How did you come about rolling out this new-to-channel tech?

Karen Meyer:
I think it’s a great story. Craig Hoppen is the President of the company now – he’s second generation. And approximately 10 years ago, he commented in one of our staff meetings, why aren’t self-checkouts in c-stores? And there’s 13 of us on that staff, and I think we all looked at him in shock, like a “self-checkout at a c-store?”

Karen Meyer:
So self-checkouts in c-stores, it’s gotta be impossible, but he made it my task to pursue it. And it took a lot of discussion and visits with our equipment partners and J & H has always looked to be first on the street with new technology when it’s available. So I continued with our partners and asked them that when you have self-checkouts available, we want to be the first ones out there. And it took over eight years. But about two years ago, we installed our first self-checkouts in a brand new build. And since then we’ve installed 21 different locations. Some of them were new builds. Some of them, we had to retrofit, an area at the counter to have them installed. And I just placed an order for 10 more today.

Carolyn Schnare:
How did your store employees feel about these new kiosks?

Karen Meyer:
The employees thought they were being replaced. We reassured them that that is not what it was that was happening. It was to alleviate the lines to still associate it all around with customer service. I’m from that era where if you, there were three people in line, you made sure you got another associate up there helping never more than two or three people in line. So if you have the correct manager and you have the correct team member that as they look up and see four people in line, and they can point them towards the self-checkout. People are like, ‘oh, I get to step out of line.’ ‘I get to go to the front of the line.’ And they’re out of there before all three other people in the regular line are gone. It frees them up to do the other parts of their job.

Karen Meyer:
If we have clean bathrooms, that traveler is going to remember that destination. So the team members…frees them up to make sure the bathrooms are clean all during COVID, to make everything sure everything is sanitized. They have that cleaning list they have to do hourly, so it frees them up to get that taken care of. I feel they have helped increase sales because the customer does know they can get in and out quicker. It’s caused more customer visits even and we have not taking, taken any POS out of a store and replaced it with a self-checkout. We actually have a location we installed, it had three POS. We installed two self-checkouts and six months later, we had to put another POS in just {because} the customer counts and so increased that much. Amazon, COVID, lack of help, a perfect storm? Customers are going to see more and more of the self-checkouts.

Carolyn Schnare:
So, Karen, what do your customers expect when they stop at a J & H Family Store?

Karen Meyer:
I feel people are always looking for more seconds in their day. And when they’re shopping at J & H Family Stores, they know that our equipment will be clean and operating from the minute they drive by for the first time, or they pull in our lot, I think they should hopefully be able to see how proud we are of our locations that we shine, free of trash, looks clean, it’s well lit. Looking for those seconds in the day? Technology is helping us find seconds in the day.

Carolyn Schnare:
I couldn’t have ended that better myself. Seconds in the day. Convenience. Time. That’s what convenience stores can give customers and if it’s technology that can get them there, then by all means, give it to them. That’s it for this episode in this special series on convenience categories. Be sure to search up the previous episodes in this series which I’ll also link to in the show notes. We will be bringing you more episodes like this in the near future. If you have suggestions for categories to cover, drop me a note in the suggestion box on our website. Next week, we’ll be bringing to you some more interesting discussion on technology and how working with your partners can lead to successful implementation and higher sales. Thank you for listening to Convenience Matters, brought to you by NACS and produced in partnership with Human Factor. And, a special thanks to Patrick, Chris and Karen for their insights. To learn more, visit Convenience.org.

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