Self-service Extending Beyond the Pumps at C-Stores

Americans have long sought convenience leading to the boom in convenience stores. Recognizing this driver, C-stores have expanded their offerings beyond fuel, drinks, and candy to meals, produce, pastries, and finer coffees. Customers are voting with their wallets that they desire more from a convenience stop, but operators started recognizing a wall to their growth.

While pay-at-the-pump offers customers self-checkout outside the store, inside the stores traditional checkout counters are facing challenges:

     • Rising labor costs
     • Difficulty finding trusted labor to service point-of-sale registers
     • Customers impatient to wait in line to pay, abandon in-store, high margin purchases

Progressive C-store operators have begun a migration to the well-proven technology of self-checkout to address these challenges. Self-checkout has proven itself in the grocery industry and within their own industry at the pumps. Now, by integrating self-checkout with the pumps and their prepared food ordering kiosks, C-stores can service customers efficiently and seamlessly with one device. Customers, who not only want convenience, but also independence, love the choice. Some customers also like to minimize human interactions during the pandemic, so self-checkout satisfies that priority as well.

NCR, among other solution providers, have designed lower profile self-checkout solutions to fit very well into the limited space of a convenience store. They are also among the first to integrate to most credit networks including many major oil companies. This allows for true self-checkout integration.

Macro Integration Services has installed thousands of lanes of self-checkout over the years in the grocery space. Now, complimented by a partnership with NCR, Macro can provide and deploy a complete offering to C-stores. This includes POS self-checkout hardware and software interfaced to the pumps, and most credit networks, including several major-oil branded. Macro also provides surveillance, digital signage, food service peripherals (KVS, drive-thru, etc.) and more. Let’s have a conversation to discuss your store automation needs.

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