In what it claims is an Australian first, 7-Eleven Australia has launched a cashless and cardless “concept” convenience store.
Instead of cash or cards, customers use their smartphones to complete their transactions.
7-Eleven describes the store, in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond, as “a completely new retail experience” for its Australian customers.
Keeping customers appy
The store has no physical checkout counter. Instead, everything happens via a specially designed app.
Customers walk around the store, pick out the items they want, scan barcodes and pay via the app.
To make the payment transaction as simple as possible, says 7-Eleven, customers create a user profile on their smartphone app. They link this to their credit card and upload a selfie. Customers will then be able to scan their own items on their phone and check out within seconds. This means no queuing or re-entering payment details.
The system, says 7-Eleven, frees up store team members to “focus on greeting and assisting customers”.
7-Eleven first tested the app at its Exhibition Street (Melbourne) store, alongside the traditional point of sale system.
Pushing convenience ‘to its limit’
7-Eleven CEO Angus McKay says 7-Eleven is committed to providing “more enjoyable and convenient” shopping experiences.
“Nobody likes to wait,” he said. “So eliminating queues was part of the mission for this mobile checkout. In the new concept store, customers will notice the absence of a counter. The store feels more spacious, and customers avoid being funnelled to a checkout location, creating a frictionless in-store experience.
“Continuing our focus on providing ultimate convenience, this year we’re trialling a catering service, too. We’re thinking about ways to provide an extraordinary experience to more customers, more often, in more ways that suit them. That might be delivery, it might be micro-store formats. We’re trying to push the notion of ‘convenience’ to its absolute limit.”
Customers can download the 7-Eleven store app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
The 7-Eleven concept store is at 2/658 Church Street, Richmond, Melbourne.
