TECHNOLOGY
MAPCO is partnering with Grabango to enable its shoppers to skip the checkout line.
No-Touch & Go Contactless convenience is becoming the new norm in the convenience channel By Melissa Kress
TO SAY THAT THE COVID-19 pan-
demic has had a major effect on convenience store technology is an understatement. The global health crisis impacted all areas of life when it struck in early 2020, including changes in how consumers want to shop. Many c-store operators found themselves having to play catchup to meet consumers’ new wants and wishes. “The pandemic accelerated consumer adoption of digital technology and forever shifted how consumers expect to engage with their favorite brands — whether they are restaurants, retailers or convenience stores,” said Chris Abele, vice president of Carat and Digital Commerce at Brookfield,
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Wis.-based Fiserv, a global fintech and payments company. The checkout process and how consumers pay for their purchases is one shift. “Contactless payments are an interesting topic right now. Before COVID, I think it was a project led by technology people, but not moving very quickly in retail. Then, COVID hit and it accelerated a lot of things including contactless payments,” said Will Glaser, CEO and founder of Berkeley, Calif.-based Grabango. Grabango, which offers a contactless checkout solution similar to Amazon's walk-in, walk-out technology, is currently working with industry retailers such as MAPCO, Giant Eagle/GetGo, BP and Circle K, and will soon be adding three more to its platform.
Slow to Change Pre-pandemic, the convenience retail channel was historically known to be a slow adopter of contactless commerce, but that was mostly because consumer adoption of digital solutions was
