Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

convenience stores

Instacart Expands 7-Eleven Delivery Nationwide

Instacart announced today that it is expanding its delivery partnership with 7-Eleven across the U.S. Instacart will now deliver food, household items, alcohol, snacks and more from roughly 6,000 7-Eleven stores across 33 states and Washington, D.C. in as little as 30 minutes.

Customers looking to get items delivered from the famed convenience store chain can visit www.instacart.com/711 or by opening the Instacart mobile app.

Instacart first partnered with 7-Eleven back in September of 2020, starting with 750 stores across a limited number of southeastern states. It was the first convenience store partnership for Instacart, and the program has grown since, with today’s news marking an expansion of 4,000 new 7-Eleven locations to the service.

The convenience store category has certainly become more, well, convenient over the past year thanks to third-party delivery. In addition to Instacart, DoorDash ramped up its own c-store delivery ambitions last year launching delivery partnerships with 7-Eleven, Wawa, Casey’s General Store, and CircleK.

The pandemic, lockdowns and social distancing made home delivery table stakes for any food retailer. But the biggest competition for existing players like 7-Eleven and CircleK may not be other big c-store brands. Instead, it could come from the rising wave of new delivery-only conveniences stores. Gopuff recently raised $1.5 billion to scale up its dark convenience stores that deliver 24 hours a day. There are also new, small grocers like Fridge No More which are basically convenience stores, offering delivery in as little as fifteen minutes. Not to mention DoorDash building out its own chain of delivery-only DashMart stores.

The question these upstarts raise is whether getting the types of snacks and drinks and impulse items you find at convenience stores will become more like a utility. If fast delivery is available anytime, will people at home still stock up on items in one trip, or will they make multiple orders throughout the day to satiate their snacking whims? The answer may not be so convenient for existing c-stores. [I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU MEAN WITH THE LAST LINE.]

Foxtrot Market Raises $42 Million for Its Corner Store and One-Hour Delivery

Corner store and café chain Foxtrot Market announced today that it has raised a $42 million Series B round of funding. Alamanac Insights and Monogram Capital Partners led the round with participation from David Chang, Imaginary Ventures, Wittington Ventures, Fifth Wall, Lerer Hippeau, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, M3 Ventures, The University of Chicago, Collaborative Fund, Wasson Enterprise, Bluestein Ventures, and Barshop Ventures.

Foxtrot launched in 2014 and in addition to being an “upscale” corner store, the business has app-based purchasing and makes its entire inventory available for delivery in under one hour. According to today’s press announcement, last year company sales increased more than 100 percent year-over-year.

On its website, Foxtrot currently lists 10 open locations across Chicago, IL and Dallas, TX, with two more coming to the Washington, D.C. area. With its new funding, Foxtrot said it expects to double its store count by the end of the year, adding as many as nine stores in Chicago and Dallas, along with further expansion into D.C. The new money will also go towards expanding its line of private label packaged goods and gifts, and further investment in its nationwide shipping.

As mundane as they may be in our everyday lives, the convenience store is going through a bit of a renaissance right now. DoorDash is not only delivering from convenience stores, but also building out its own line of delivery-only convenience stores. Also, more convenience stores are adopting new technology like cashierless checkout, thanks to startups like AiFi, Grabango and Zippin.

Foxtrot is also part of another trend we’re seeing at The Spoon: investment in speedy delivery. Over in Europe, both Weezy in the U.K. and Gorillas in Germany got funding in the past few months for their fast, corner store-like deliveries. Here in the U.S., GoPuff bought BevMo to expand its sub-30 minute delivery network.

The pandemic accelerated our need for delivery, and it looks like convenience and corner stores are definitely stepping up to deliver.

Zippin Launches Cashierless Checkout Store in Yokohama Techno Tower Hotel

Zippin announced today the launch of a checkout-free convenience store in the Yokohama Techno Tower Hotel in Japan. It was done in partnership with Fujitsu and the Koyo Group, and Zippin says this is the world’s first cashierless checkout store within a hotel.

The Green Leaves Plus store sells pre-packaged food, drinks and fresh bento boxes. It opened earlier this year as a pilot and is accessible to the public. Customers must first download the Green Leaves Plus mobile app and register their credit card information, after which they can then enter the store with a QR code displayed on the app. Customers can also use the biometric authentication that links palm vein and facial recognition with the mobile app. After this is submitted, users just need to swipe their palm to gain entrance to the store.

Once inside, shoppers just grab what they want and go. Zippin’s combination of cameras and shelf sensors automatically keep track of what people take and automatically charge them upon leaving the store. Zippin said that based on early analytics shoppers are spending an average of just 113 seconds inside the Green Leaves Plus store.

Zippin and Fujitsu announced their partnership back in December of last year. Fujitsu is the exclusive distributor of Zippin’s cashierless checkout system, and adds its biometric authentication layer.

This first Green Leaves Plus store in the Yokohama Techno Tower could be just the beginning for Zippin in Japan. In addition to hotels, the Koyo Group operates convenience stores and restaurants in more than 500 hospitals, and from the press announcement emailed to The Spoon, Green Leaves Plus is part of Koyo’s multiphase expansion plan to create new c-store concepts for hospitals.

Zippin isn’t alone in bringing cashierless checkout to Japan. New Zealand based-IMAGR has partnered with Japanese retailer H2O to install smart shopping carts at three locations across Tokyo and Osaka.

The pandemic has pushed retailers towards cashierless checkout solutions as they look to reduce human-to-human contact. As such, we’ll be seeing a lot more cashierless checkout stores opening around the world.

GoPuff Acquires BevMo for $350 Million

Delivery startup, goPuff announced today that it is acquiring booze retailer BevMo for $350 million. Bloomberg was first to report the story earlier today, with goPuff sending out press release confirming the news later this morning.

GoPuff is a delivery service that has a network of more than 200 micro-fulfillment centers serving more than 500 U.S. cities. The service is available 24 hours a day to deliver everyday goods like groceries, baby and pet products and booze within 30 minutes. Each delivery carries a $1.95 delivery fee ($10.95 order minimum), and there is a subscription option for $5.95 a month.

With the acquisition, goPuff will get an accelerated entrance into the California. BevMo has 161 stores throughout California, Arizona and Washington state. Not only does this give goPuff access to the “millions” of BevMo customers, but all those BevMo buildings can serve as fulfillment centers to deliver bottles of wine and baby bottles.

GoPuff raised $380 million in new funding last month and has raised a total of $1.2 billion. It’s deep pockets and purchase of BevMo continue the accelerated evolution of convenience store delivery we’ve seen during the pandemic.

DoorDash and Instacart both offer delivery from convenience stores now. DoorDash even took things a step further with the creation of its own chain of dark convenience stores from which the company operates delivery services.

GoPuff is also part of the burgeoning micro-fulfillment trend, which forsakes huge, centralized warehouses in favor of smaller, neighborhood facilities that don’t house as many items. Grocery retailers H-E-B and Albertsons have both announced micro-fulfillment centers to process online orders.

According to today’s press announcement, goPuff’s acquisition of BevMo is expected to close within 30 days.

How Tech is Putting the Convenience Back in Convenience Stores

It’s hard to believe now, but back when I was a kid, going to 7-Eleven was a treat. It was like destination shopping. Where else could you get a Slurpee in a commemorative Star Trek cup, a pack of baseball cards and a box of nerds?

What I can buy at a convenience store like 7-Eleven may not hold sway over me any more, but as a technology reporter, the ways I can get convenience store items now is something I’m paying attention to.

Like every other retail sector, convenience has had a rocky year thanks to COVID-19. According to the National Association of Convenience Stores, for the two-week period ending Sept. 27, dollar sales at convenience stores were up 4.8 percent year-over-year, but overall trips to convenience stores were down 12.6 percent. Beer and packaged beverages drove most of that growth, while foodservice remained depressed.

That traffic to convenience stores is down is not a big surprise. I mean, people aren’t exactly road tripping a lot during this pandemic. The pandemic also explains the boost in beer sales, as we could all use a drink.

But the convenience sector is responding to these troubled times with what appears to be an accelerated wave of innovation. Consider:

Convenience stores are ramping up delivery.
Third party delivery services like Instacart and DoorDash both now offer delivery from convenience stores. Heck, DoorDash is building its own ghost convenience stores. 7-Eleven is making a concerted push into pickup and delivery, even making deliveries to parks and beaches.

Convenience stores are going cashless.
Mastercard recently announced a partnership with Accel Robotics to deploy cashierless tech at retail, and Circle K is among the first customers. Giant Eagle’s GetGo Market+Cafe is using Grabango for a cashierless location. A startup called Skip is focused on convenience stores for its cashierless checkout. And, of course, Amazon Gos continue to roll out across the country.

Smaller, cashierless convenience stores create new opportunities.
Because they can operate without humans, you are seeing diminutive convenience stores pop up with smaller footprints. AWM Smart Shelf is powering a convenience store built into an apartment complex. And the Zippin Cube let’s retail brands create pop-up convenience stores inside places like stadiums.

At the end of the day, all of these technologies are putting more convenience in convenience stores. I can have quick items brought to my home (or park). The ability to walk in, grab what you want and leave without standing in a line will speed transactions up. And smaller stores will be pushed into smaller places in more locations. It all adds up to a pretty fast evolution of that entire category.

Now I just wish they would bring back more of those commemorative cups.

Wawa Goes Beyond Standard Convenience Store Fare With a Plant-Based Breakfast

Like most other types of food businesses, the convenience store is changing due to the pandemic, and that includes what’s on the menu when it comes to food. In line with that, today, convenience store chain Wawa announced a partnership with Beyond Meat to bring a plant-based breakfast option to its stores.

Dubbed the Sizzli Breakfast Sandwich, the new item will use Beyond’s Breakfast Sausage product. As of today, it’s available at 650 Wawa stores in the Mid-Atlantic region and will be available in all Florida stores from August 10 onward.

In certain parts of the country, namely the Mid-Atlantic, Wawa is practically iconic in the world of convenience store chains. But like many food businesses nowadays, it’s having to reinvent itself in the wake of changing consumer demands around healthy eating and massive shifts in how people get that food.

The chain already offers its “Wawa Your Way” menu, which offers healthier options and caters to various dietary needs/preferences (gluten-free, plant-based, etc.).

Adding a plant-based option to the menu is the obvious next step. Consumer demand for plant-based proteins has surged during the pandemic as ugly truths about the meat industry continue to come to light. The whole of the alternative protein category, including plant-based meat, is expected to grow to $17.9 billion by 2025.

But plant-based options isn’t the only change Wawa has introduced recently to meet new consumer behaviors. With more people staying at home, or just wary of mingling with strangers in public settings, the company has had to turn its attention to serving folks off-premises. Wawa struck a delivery deal with DoorDash in April, then launched curbside order and pickup in June. Just this week, the chain announced its first-ever drive-thru location, which will begin construction in August in Falls Township, PA.

Wawa’s announcements follow moves by other well-known convenience store chains to shift both their formats and products to meet the current times. 7-Eleven expanded delivery and introduced a new pickup feature in July. It too has a partnership with DoorDash. Over in Tokyo, Uber Eats is delivering food from Lawson Convenience stores. And let’s not forget cashierless checkout’s march into the convenience store realm, led by Zippin, Aramark, and others.

Wawa’s news from the week is further proof multiple intersections are happening right now between convenience stores, grocery stores, and restaurants, and between plant-based diets and traditional ones. Expect more of these lines to blur as the entire food industry continues changing at the pace of the pandemic.

7-Eleven Continues Off-Premises Push With Pickup Feature, Expanded Delivery

Convenience store chain 7-Eleven today announced updates to its off-premises business that include expanded delivery and an order/pay ahead feature for pickup orders placed through its 7NOW app.

The new pickup feature works much like pickup at a restaurant or grocery store would. Customers log into the app and select “pickup” instead of delivery, then place items in their cart and pay for them. The app notifies the user of the order’s progress and sends a four-digit code to show the clerk once the order is ready to be picked up. 

The ability to order and pay for snacks, household supplies, and drinks ahead of time is becoming an increasingly mandatory feature in these pandemic-stricken days. Historically, convenience stores have catered more to spur-of-the-moment purchases, so it remains to be seen if the concept of ordering ahead will translate to this setting. 

One thing the new feature does underscore is technology’s continued advancement on the convenience store format. Earlier this month, Aramark opened a convenience store in an apartment complex that features cashierless checkout tech from AWM Smart Shelf. DoorDash, meanwhile, has been delivering items from Circle K and Wawa as well as 7-Eleven, since the early(ish) days of the pandemic. The common denominator for all these developments is the emphasis on contactless transactions and minimizing human-to-human contact. Given the state of the world, the push to further integrate those things into every corner of daily life will continue for some time to come. 

In the same announcement, 7-Eleven said it has doubled its delivery reach to 2,000 stores across 1,300 cities. At the moment, delivery is available through DoorDash, Postmates, Favor Delivery in Texas, and through the 7NOW app itself.

DoorDash Launches Convenience Store Delivery with 7-Eleven, Circle K, Wawa and More

DoorDash announced today that it is expanding its food delivery operations into the convenience store category. The delivery service has partnered with regional and national convenience stores such as 7-Eleven, Wawa, Casey’s General Store, and CircleK to drop off items like sodas, snacks and over-the-counter medicine at your door (with no human-to-human contact, of course).

DoorDash didn’t say specifically where in the U.S. its new convenience delivery is available, only that it added more than 1,800 stores to its platform. Where available, DoorDash users will see a “Convenience” icon or banner in the app. Upon clicking that banner, you can shop for the packaged goods you’d normally buy at a convenience store.

In a corporate blog post announcing the new service category, DoorDash’s Head of Grocery Partnerships, Mike Goldblatt, and Fuad Hannon, the company’s Head of New Business Verticals, wrote that DoorDash piloted the service earlier this year but has accelerated its official launch to accommodate needs “during a time when delivery and pickup are vital to consumers’ wellbeing and to the health of our local communities.” See also: global pandemic upending pretty much every aspect of our everyday lives and every previous business plan for startups.

DoorDash Convenience in action

Another good reason for DoorDash to expand its service categories is that its main clientele, the restaurant industry, is in the midst of an unprecedented collapse. Social distancing has forced the closure of restaurant dining rooms across the country. While some are pivoting to delivery only, the economics of restaurants relying on third-party delivery services like DoorDash remains to be seen.

Coincidentally, DoorDash’s announcement comes on the same day that Uber Eats announced it was expanding into more grocery delivery via convenience stores in France, Spain and Portugal.

Providing groceries via convenience stores make a lot of sense for third-party delivery services like DoorDash and Uber Eats. They can fulfill quick-hit food needs that aren’t full-on supermarket shopping trips. This not only allows for faster and therefore more deliveries (and more revenue), it also doesn’t turn delivery people into grocery shoppers wandering around a giant supermarket, hand-selecting produce, chips, etc.

Of course, at a time when delivery services grocery stores and through Instacart are being slammed with new users, having this type of quick hit delivery for small things could relieve some pressure and provide relief for those stuck at home.

The coronavirus outbreak is accelerating a lot of changes to food tech businesses. DoorDash’s expansion into convenience stores is just among the many we’ll be seeing as this pandemic continues.

7-11 is Testing Scan-and-Go Tech, Beer on Tap, and Handmade Tortillas at Its New Store

The humble convenience store seems next on the list for food disruption, if by disruption you mean organic smoothies and an onsite wine cellar.

Those things and much more are part of 7-11’s new “innovation station” store which the company announced this week. Located in 7-11’s hometown of Dallas, TX, the store will serve as a testing ground for the company to try new foods and food technologies, and see what sticks with customers. This is the first of a planned six locations for the so-called innovation station. The store is less than two miles away from the original ice house where 7-11 started nearly a century ago.

Some of the initiatives seem a natural fit for a convenience store that’s testing ways to make food better and faster. The store is equipped with scan-and-go technology, which allows customers to grab items (excepting beer, wine, tobacco, and other age-restricted products) and purchase them using their smartphones. The store is also offering a frozen-yogurt and ice-cream bar, baked goods made in-house, and seating both indoors and outdoors.

The new store will also include a Laredo Taco Company cafe, which will offer the chain’s famous handmade tortillas, salsa bar, and plate meals like enchiladas and fajitas. 7-11 acquired the trademark rights for Laredo from Sunoco in 2018.

Elsewhere in the new store, customers can find cold-pressed juices, made-to-order coffee drinks, kombucha and nitro-brew coffee on tap, and an area called “The Cellar” that features expanded wine selections and a growler-filling station.

The scan-and-go tech is especially interesting, as it could speed up the transaction process for customers so they can breeze in and out in minutes, rather than waiting in a line six people deep. That said, my colleague Chris Albrecht noted last year that something like Amazon Go, which lets you walk in, shop, and walk out, “is light years ahead of its competition when it comes to cashierless checkout, and putting the ‘convenience’ in convenience store.” As he rightly points out, you still have to manually scan the item to purchase it at 7-11, as opposed to literally just grabbing it and walking out of the store. So 7-11 still has some work ahead in terms of standing out in this area. (Though the same could be said of most convenience stores that aren’t Amazon.)

It’s also a smart move to offer food options beyond the usual convenience store fare of beef jerky, Doritos, and Twinkies. As someone who spends gratuitous amounts of time on the road, I can tell you the novelty of junk food wears off pretty quickly. The idea of finding a made-to-order latte or a fresh taco en route sounds like the definition of convenience to me.

Growlers and wine cellars I’m less convinced about. But as 7-11 noted in the press release, many of these initiatives are limited-time offerings and, according to 7‑Eleven executive vice president and chief operating officer Chris Tanco, meant to “explore new ideas that weren’t even on the retail radar a few months ago.”

Check it Out, Skip’s Cashierless Tech Targets Convenience Stores

Amazon kicked off the cashierless checkout craze a year ago with its Amazon Go stores. Now a number of cashierless players are coming to market, each with their own solution. Amazon uses a combination of cameras and sensors to automatically keep track of what you buy, while Grabango uses lots of small cameras, and Caper employs a smart shopping cart.

Skip is another entrant in the increasingly crowded field of startups looking to retrofit existing retail outlets with cashierless checkout systems. But Skip’s approach is decidedly less tech intensive. However, this lack of high-end installation could be what gives it an edge in the market. (Hat tip to The Shelby Report for bringing Skip to our attention.)

The Skip checkout system has three parts: a mobile app for the consumer, an app for the store clerk and a cloud cam. Once the shopper downloads the Skip app, they use it to scan and pay for items they are taking. As a shopper scans items, the store clerk’s app gets a notification and a running tally of the items the shopper is taking. This helps the clerk know what is being paid for and helps prevent people from saying they are just picking up milk, but walking out with an armful of goodies.

The Cloud Cam is a wall-mounted camera and screen installed above the store’s entrance that displays the username of the shopper and the number of items they paid for. This display shows the clerk and other shoppers that the person leaving isn’t stealing, and acts as another theft deterrent by letting shoppers know that they are on camera.

If Skip’s approach to cashierless checkout sounds familiar, that’s because 7-11 launched a similar scan-and-go system last year. Convenience stores like 7-11 are actually Skip’s main target, with the company saying the convenience segment has the largest footprint for growth. Skip says its solution will be in roughly 150 convenience stores and 83 grocery stores by the end of this month.

Skip generates revenue through a Saas model, charging stores on a sliding scale anywhere between $15 and $50 a month. The company says it’s seeing ten percent month over month growth.

Like with any new technology, Skip’s solution has pros and cons. On the plus side, there’s really no infrastructure for stores to implement other than some software and the cloud cam, so any store could be easily retrofitted. Additionally, Skip’s system allows existing checkout systems to remain in place, so stores can continue to take cash or credit cards.

Downsides seem to be that the technology still relies on the clerks to help monitor what people are buying. That’s easy when there are one or two people in the store, but it seems like a dozen or more shoppers could overwhelm a lone clerk. Additionally, there are some privacy considerations that don’t seem to be fully thought out. The Cloud Cam displays the username of the person as they exit the store, but people could be using their real name which would then get flashed on a screen for everyone to see.

Right now Skip is available in different regional chains, mostly in Western states, though that will change quickly over the coming months as stores across the country come out of testing and go live. Skip itself is based in Salt Lake City, UT and has roughly 15 employees. The company raised roughly $5 million in seed funding two years ago.

The cashierless tech space may be crowded, but Skip’s low-fi approach and convenience store targeting might be enough to get retailers to check it out.

7-Eleven Launches Scan & Pay Pilot to Keep Up with Amazon Go

Storied convenience store chain 7-Eleven launched a new Scan & Pay pilot program today that lets shoppers use their mobile phone for self-checkout.

The new feature launched in 14 Dallas area 7-Eleven stores, and the press materials describe the Scan & Pay process as follows:

  • Install the 7-Eleven app on the Android or iOS phones and register for the 7Rewards loyalty program
  • While shopping, customers scan the barcodes of items they want to purchase
  • Customers put their purchased items into clear plastic bags at the Scan & Pay station
  • Customers can pay using Apple or Google Pay or a traditional debit or credit card at a Scan & Pay station
  • Once they pay, customers scan a QR code that appears on the confirmation screen at the Scan & Pay station and show it to the cashier as they leave

The press release was a little vague on details: Is the Scan & Pay station separate from the checkout line? What if the cashier is busy as you try to leave? Do Slurpees have a barcode?

So I reached out to 7-Eleven for more details. But even with further clarification, it’s easy to see that Amazon Go is light years ahead of its competition when it comes to cashierless checkout, and putting the “convenience” in convenience store.

7-Eleven’s Scan & Pay is reminiscent of Walmart’s “Scan and Go” feature in more than just naming conventions. Both require the use of mobile phones to manually scan items that you want to purchase. Amazon Go, on the other hand lets shoppers walk in, grab something and walk out.

Both Walmart and 7-Eleven are large, legacy corporations and getting them to turn into a digital future is like asking an aircraft carrier to come about. It takes time. Amazon Go’s have the advantage of just now rolling out and only have five locations, so they can be architected from the ground up to accommodate all of the high-tech gadgets and gizmos required to create a truly frictionless shopping experience.

Will customers find convenience in 7-Eleven’s Scan & Pay scenario? We’ll soon find out, as the company plans to expand the service into more cities next year.