Putting Itself Out of Business

Convenience Store News' 2022 Technology Leader of the Year, Sheetz Inc., stays focused on evolving its business

By Melissa Kress

SHEETZ INC. has long been known for its made-toorder (MTO) foodservice offerings — and along with it, ordering kiosks — but its innovation stream has moved beyond what has become standard in the industry to new technology spaces like digital currencies and subscription programs.

It is for this forward-thinking take on retail technology that Convenience Store News has selected Altoona, Pa.-based Sheetz as its 2022 Technology Leader of the Year. The convenience retailer operates more than 640 locations throughout Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Ohio and North Carolina.

The annual award goes to a technology leader (individual or company) who not only contributes to the success of their organization, but also to the advancement and growth of the convenience store industry as a whole. award at this year's CSNews Technology Leadership Roundtable & Dinner, held Oct. 1 in Las Vegas.

The goal at Sheetz is to "put Sheetz as we know it out of business." What does that mean? Continuous evolution, according to Travis Sheetz.

"Anytime we build a new Sheetz store, it should make the other one down the street look old," he explained. "We want to outdo ourselves. We don’t want anyone else to; we want to be first to evolve our business."

There are a lot of factors that drive and influence that evolution. Notably, according to the chief executive, those factors include employees, customers and the supply chain.

"Technology is a great enabler to all those businesses we are in and the customers that we serve," he said. "We are very literal about not

using technology for technology's sake, but using it for what it can do to make our business better."

On the operations side of the convenience channel, technology helps retailers with efficiencies and labor redistribution to focus employees on the more value-added parts of the business. As for consumerfacing solutions, technology helps with convenience.

"We are in the business of making people's daily lives easier. We are focused on that convenience-demanding customer, so there is a lot of digital, consumer-facing technology that really helps with that," he pointed out.

Additionally, technology helps with information. "The world is all about data," Travis Sheetz said. "Not only who has the most data, but who uses it the most effectively."

Technology & COVID-19

There is no denying that the COVID-19 pandemic pushed technology to the forefront of the convenience channel for the majority of retailers, but Sheetz embraced technology solutions long before the health crisis gripped the world.

Even prior to March 2020, the convenience retailer had rolled out drive-thru capabilities, delivery and mobile ordering. The one feature Sheetz did implement quickly in the months immediately following the pandemic was curbside pickup.

"We were pretty ready from a technology side. That was the times. You had to react to what was going on and the environment," Travis Sheetz recalled.

Sheetz rolled out drive-thru capabilities, delivery and mobile ordering before the COVID-19 pandemic spurred innovation in the channel.

Philosophy on Technology

In a channel that has been slow to wrap its arms around technology, that piece of the puzzle is often left out of discussions until plans are in place. At Sheetz, information technology (IT) is part of the discussion, but not "forced," according to the CEO.

"When we are looking at something new — innovation in general — we ask the question: How can technology help us?" he explained. "There are very few things today where technology can't help you be better."

More to the point, technology does not just live in Sheetz's IT group. For example, the retailer's consumer digital and data teams, and its loyalty program, sit within the sales and marketing team.

"These are all highly technology-driven things. Technology is not just IT and because of that, it is always at that table," Travis Sheetz said. "Having them always at the table is extremely important. Any strategic initiative we have generally has an IT component to it."

Emily Sheetz, vice president of strategy and information technology, is focused on growing that group to be both a service group and a value-added group, he noted.

Innovation Hub

In late 2019, Sheetz opened a technology and innovation hub in Pittsburgh. The hub focuses on developing, testing and implementing what Sheetz calls "transformative products and services."

According to the chief executive, the hub is set up to look outside the Sheetz model, and identify holes in the marketplace and opportunities for the convenience retailer to do something different — add the competencies that Sheetz possesses to another business to create value.

The internal mission at Sheetz is to give customers what they want, when they want it.

Noting it is a "test, learn and fail group," he explained the innovation hub is working across a broad spectrum of industries, not just convenience.

There is also interest from both the innovation hub and the retailer's in-house innovation team in establishing a retail lab concept, according to Travis Sheetz, where the retailer would be able to test technology solutions in a retail format that could apply to a very different business or to Sheetz's current model.

"That sits in the middle of our incubator, long-term innovation and what we call our mid-range innovation in-house to make Sheetz as we know it today better," he said.

Exploring New Avenues

In mid-2021, Sheetz became the first convenience store chain to accept digital currency. After partnering with Flexa, the retailer worked with NCR to accept digital currencies like bitcoin, ether, litecoin and dogecoin at its point-of-sale (POS) systems in-store and at the pump.

Although the talk around digital currency has simmered a bit lately, Travis Sheetz acknowledged that customers should be able to pay in whatever format they want. That thought process plays into Sheetz's internal mission to give customers what they want, when they want it.

Sheetz offers a variety of platforms across all areas of its stores; rolling out digital currency is a way to add to payments, he said, noting that convenience retailers need to go where the customer is — whether that is pay at the pump, self-checkout or digital currency.

"There are different evolutions in different business units and there are customers along different points of that evolution. We don’t want to carve out one group of customers; we want to offer them what they want and how they want to do it," he said.

In another move to address the shifting needs of convenience shoppers, and the definition of convenience, Sheetz recently entered the subscription space with a $9.99 monthly subscription program for its "fryz," and an unlimited self-service drink subscription for $14.99 a month available through the Sheetz mobile app.

The subscription model brings the loyalty punch card system into the 21st century. However, supply chain issues in convenience overall, and the foodservice category, have led Sheetz to "be more tentative" than it normally would be, Travis Sheetz pointed out.

Technology will also play a role in expanding the subscription program, particularly into the car wash space, he added.

Looking Forward

Even with all this going on, Sheetz is not standing still. One area of innovation the retailer is excited about is payments and the evolution of the POS.

Noting the migration from credit card swipes to credit scans to Apple Pay, Travis Sheetz wonders what the future could bring.

When it comes to payment systems, a retailer needs to be "very nimble and flexible," he said, and this speaks to having the technology infrastructure.

"Who knows what people will be paying with; all you have to do is be able to identify yourself and you can make a payment," he said, adding that this could include biometrics. "It keeps evolving and the customer expectation keeps evolving — particularly the young people." CSN