Technology | POS & Back Office
C-Stores Integrating
Frictionless Checkout As technology evolves, the point of sale (POS) is transforming also. POS systems are becoming more lightweight, and the overall hardware cost is decreasing, with many of the newer POS systems using cloud technology, said Perry Kramer, managing partner with retail consulting firm Retail Consulting Partners. “The use of cloud technology, in most cases, reduces total cost of ownership and the time needed to develop and deploy new features. However, multiple outages this fall at cloud service providers resulted in significant POS and payment outages across all retail spaces, including c-stores,” Kramer said. “This has retailers looking at cloud POS systems through a slightly different lens. Support for offline has moved from ‘nice to have’ to ‘must have’ for most major retailers.” Many POS systems today have moved their architecture to a microservice-based technology, Kramer added. “This will be critical in the long run for c-stores, which have many more peripherals than other retail verticals,” he said. Typical POS integrations for c-stores today include things like digital ordering, kiosks for ordering prepared foods, car washes, digital signs, loyalty, fuel dispensers, storage tanks and more. Upgrading newer architecture will help pave the way for c-stores’ long-term success by lower costs and reducing time to market when it comes to making changes, Kramer explained. 102
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CSTORE DECISIONS •
March 2022
Kramer advised c-stores to remain focused on eliminating friction and improving speed at the POS by using contactless, mobile payments and prepayments. “These advancements must include the traditional checkout touch points and the expanding digital and mobile checkout touch points,” he said. A FRICTIONLESS APPROACH
Delek US is one such c-store chain offering a frictionless checkout experience. Delek has 250 company-operated c-stores throughout Texas and New Mexico and is in the process of rebranding all of its locations under the DK banner. In the summer of 2020, DK was the first c-store chain to pilot touchless checkout powered by Mashgin technology, and in 2021, Delek rolled the technology out to 25% of its DK stores. It plans to continue to integrate the technology, which it calls “DK Touch-less” into additional stores
this year and beyond. “DK Touch-less is an artificial intelligence-driven checkout experience that uses computer vision to instantly recognize consumer products, including packaged goods, dispensed beverages and food items,” said Darshan Gad, senior vice president of retail sales, marketing & innovation, Delek US. “Consumers simply place their items on the unit to begin a transaction and use the adjacent pin pad to complete the process in as little as 15 seconds.” Each store features one to two checkout units featuring the technology, which has reduced checkout times by 67%. Customers have responded, with 30% of store transactions going through DK Touch-less. “Delek began exploring the future of checkout as early as 2014 when we
Source: CivicScience
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