Tackling 3 Burning Technology Issues
By Angel Abcede on Nov. 22, 20161. How two retailers will handle EMV
With forecourt EMV payment-card liability-shift dates less than a year away, two retailers spoke recently about how they were preparing—with one in an implementation phase and the other still waiting to act.
Casey’s General Stores, Ankeny, Iowa, is in “wait-and-see” mode, says CFO Bill Walljasper.
In October 2015, in-store liability for fraudulent charges tied to EMV chip cards began to fall to the retailer if that operator did not have the proper equipment to process the cards. In October 2017, the same rule will apply to dispensers.
“We do not plan to roll out EMV to all of our stores,” Walljasper says. “It just necessarily doesn’t make a lot of sense in the small communities where we don’t have a lot of potential credit-card fraud, or historically haven’t had that type of activity.”
Walljasper says the cost can range from $30,000 to $40,000 per store depending on the number of pumps. Casey’s operates 1,930 convenience stores in 14 Midwest states.
Rutter’s Farm Stores, meanwhile, decided to upgrade all of its 65 locations to EMV as a way to facilitate loyalty, payment and omnichannel marketing. “[Our] goals are to enhance the fueling experience and simplify the loyalty-rewards redemption, consumer messaging, payments and purchasing processes at our pumps,” says Kirsten Dickason, marketing coordinator for Rutter’s, York, Pa. The chain is implementing Duluth, Ga.-based NCR’s OPTIC solution, an outdoor payment terminal.
2. Burning through tobacco inventory
Implementing inventory-management solutions within the tobacco category can lead to significant stock reductions and cost savings, according to a panelist at a Pinnacle users conference held this fall.
In addition, new features can help retailers keep up with demands from major tobacco manufacturers for point-of-sale (POS) transaction data, said officials with The Pinnacle Corp., Arlington, Texas. About 180 retailers and suppliers attended its annual users conference in Frisco, Texas.
Prior to implementing Pinnacle’s item-level inventory solution, managers with Energy North Group, Tewksbury, Mass., used to place orders themselves—a process executives at the home office were satisfied with, says Kristin Bolduc, system support specialist. But by automating the process, the approximately 30-unit company was able to free up dollars locked into overstock and significantly reduce inventory on hand—from four weeks worth of inventory to 1.5 weeks worth.
Bolduc also uses the Pinnacle system to help the chain track rebates and “true” margins within the category.
3. PDI expands its 'Enterprise'
For any software provider, the release of a revised version of its core platform is a big deal. PDI was no different as officials talked about the “expansion” of its Enterprise 8 product before a record 500 convenience retailers and petroleum marketers at its user conference in San Antonio this past fall.
The four-day training and networking event emphasized significant enhancements for PDI’s Enterprise 8 platform.
“I learned a lot about how the new journal-collection services operate and about the most efficient ways to deploy the new web services,” says David Haifley, project manager for Baltimore-based Royal Farms, who attended the conference. “With this information, I will be able to reduce the total time frame of our deployment projects by about two weeks.”
Newer aspects of the software include greater market-basket and transactional database capabilities, says Austin Skaggs, vice president of marketing for PDI. Primarily done to help comply with major tobacco manufacturers’ requests for transactional data, the software can also properly format that data, he said. PDI’s labor-management solution also uses that same data to predict store-level traffic and suggest the most efficient work schedules.
Other major themes of the meeting included developments in point-of-sale (POS) data management, how to maximize operational efficiencies with Enterprise 8 and the benefits of PDI services, which give retailers the option of turning current automated processes such as pricebook maintenance over to PDI.
Haifley of Royal Farms was considering expanding his current use of PDI’s services with an enhanced disaster-recovery package.
Company officials also talked about PDI’s recent acquisition of Intellifuel, Titusville, Fla., which handles downstream petroleum and biofuels processes, as well as midstream processes such as terminal automation, custody transfer and railcar scheduling.