This article originally appeared in a print edition of Convenience Store News, written by contributor Melissa Kress. Convenience Store News’ online content can be found here. Not that long ago, technology initiatives were a nice-to-have in the convenience channel, a bonus to stand out in the competitive set. But today, convenience store...
Averting the Digital Dilemma
This article originally appeared in a print edition of Convenience Store News, written by contributor Thomas Malloy. Convenience Store News’ online content can be found here. Most c-store operators are by now already familiar with the Internet of Things (IoT). Small sensors and tiny tech machines talk to each other...
EMV Co. and W3C, United for a World Without Friction
One of the hardest parts of the payments universe is increasing transaction speed and reducing friction for the consumer. Let’s be realistic, we have gone from paying with cash to using a mobile phone in a very short time, but the last five years have brought significant change. In the...
Generational Consumer Preferences: What Does It Mean for Your Business?
We hear it all the time – “Millennials are killing ___”, with any number of products or services filling in the blank. Millennials are currently the largest generation of spenders, and will continue to be for at least the next 10 years [1]. For merchants, this means that the...
What Happened to Cryptocurrency?
In early 2018, in an email to a colleague, I wrote this about cryptocurrency, and it remains prescient even today: “Regardless of when this is being read, the cryptocurrency market will have wildly shifted within the last few days. As cryptocurrency remains prevalent in the news, merchants and all others...
The Evolving Data Revolution
The following has been reposted from Convenience Store Decisions. The original post can be found here. Not so long ago, scan data meant monitoring how many of which items sold. It gave category managers a new response to vendors using purchase data to allocate shelf space. It relieved store employees from...
Move Aside, CCPA?
It’s been about 2 months since we have posted about data privacy, and with the speed in which this ever-changing topic moves, that is far overdue. This article will highlight some of the latest developments in data privacy, including the scope of the legislation in Maine, Nevada, and New York,...
Agile Project Delivery – How Do I Know If It’s Right For My Organization?
The retail world is changing more rapidly than ever, and organizations need to deliver solutions to market faster than at any point in history. This need has driven a push to adopt Agile delivery methodologies such as Scrum, Lean and Kanban. What are the benefits and drawbacks of migrating toward...
EMV 3DS – Going to the store? Not really!
From the first moment that humanity started to identify its primary needs, it was clear that many tasks required more than one individual to complete them. The first humans had to make teams, organize, and eventually, exchange with other teams… So began payment transactions. Many years later, money was invented;...
Has Success Made You Overlook the Threat of Digital Disruption?
20 Questions to Help You Get Past Success Bias Industry after industry has faced digital disruption. None have been immune, yet companies can continue to enjoy industry leading success while a competitor or start-up builds a disruptive product or business model. For example, Steve Ballmer, former CEO of Microsoft, famously...
End-to-End Mobile Service or Technology Facilitator?
My family’s recent ordering experience was straightforward and easy - 45 minutes after we placed a food delivery order through an app, our food arrived - the food I wanted was included while my wife’s food was missing completely. At that moment, our incomplete order made us part of an...
How C-stores Can Ward Off the Infiltration of Amazon
The following has been re-posted from Convenience Store News. The original article can be found here. By Tammy Mastroberte, Convenience Store News - 03/21/2019 An Amazon Go store NATIONAL REPORT — Debuting its cashierless store concept in December 2016, Amazon entered the convenience space with Amazon Go. Now, with 10...