It is no secret that consumers are increasingly more demanding.
Because online stores like Amazon provide that value to their customers, some are saying brick-and-mortar retail is dead.
Even convenience stores are being disrupted by more convenient options.
Brick-and-mortar retailers, including convenience retailers, still have a tremendous opportunity in front of them.
Unlike previous technology advancements, digital transformation goes beyond efficiency and often creates new business and operating models that ensure customers are digitally at the center of everything retailers do.
Some of those new models may include frictionless checkout, personalization and increased focus on emotional, not just transactional, loyalty.
In another sign that mobile self-checkout isn't just a fad, 7-Eleven, the world's largest convenience store chain, has hopped on the hot mobile scan-and-go bandwagon and introduced its own test service to allow customers to skip the checkout line.
After a three-month trial at its Irving, Texas, headquarters store this year, the retailer is testing its Scan & Pay service in 14 more stores in nearby Dallas, with plans to expand it to more cities next year, said Gurmeet Singh, 7-Eleven’s chief digital officer and chief information officer, adding that the company built the prototype technology in-house in just five weeks.
We saw a great adoption and feedback.”
With the move, 7-Eleven joins retailers like Dollar General, Kroger and Walmart’s Sam’s Club that also have their own mobile scan-and-pay services.
About 50% of the U.S. population lives within one mile of a 7-Eleven, the company said.
It had a 28% share of the U.S. convenience store market last year, more than four times the 6% share held by No.
