ANKENY, Iowa —Casey’s General Stores’ customers wanting pizza and a beer on a Friday night no longer have to leave their house to get it.
The convenience-store chain recently launched alcohol delivery—excluding liquor and wine for now—in nearly 500 stores in Iowa, Illinois, Missouri and Nebraska through DoorDash’s mobile ordering app. And as of mid-December, customers can also order beer and hard seltzers directly through the Casey’s app at about 10 stores.
While Casey’s has offered delivery for about a decade, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the chain’s expansion of last-mile offerings, Art Sebastian, vice president of digital, told CSP Daily News.
“People always ask, ‘Hey, do you see this trend slowing?’, and I don’t,” Sebastian said. “Consumers are looking for more convenient ways to live life, and this seems to be one of them.”
Allowing customers to pair beer and pizza is what’s really exciting about the new offerings, he said. Pizza is Casey’s most-ordered item on delivery, and other foodservice items such as breadsticks and wings are often bought with pizza. While alcohol delivery is still new, Sebastian said single cans of beer are surprisingly selling slightly better than 12-packs.
One benefit for guests of ordering alcohol through the Casey’s app is they’ll be able to rack up loyalty points for their purchases, he said.
“The benefit for us, obviously, is we get to see that data, and that data will further fuel our personalization. … So it helps us stay as relevant as possible,” Sebastian said.
Eventually, Casey’s hopes to add alcohol options outside of beer to its delivery offerings, but liquor laws make that a challenge.
“There are various restrictions by state, city and county on the alcohol content, which would then create implications for wine and spirits,” he said. “But our plan is to get there over time, so we’re starting with beer.”
Alcohol isn’t the only way Casey’s has recently upped its game in delivery and pickup options.
It also is now on DoorDash’s DoubleDash program and has added a new “I’m here” button to its app to use for curbside pickup.
The DoubleDash program allows customers to order from multiple restaurants or retailers in a single order with no additional delivery fee. One con to this is the average order is lower than typical delivery orders because the customer may be ordering food from a restaurant, adding beer or drinks from Casey’s, Sebastian said. But the sales are also highly incremental, he said.
“It also offers you the ability to acquire a new orderer, who might not have thought about Casey’s,” Sebastian said. “And then we show up in their app next time and have a higher likelihood they’ll order directly from us.”
For cold winter months, Casey’s also added a new “I’m here” button on its app that consumers can use for curbside pickup. Previously, customers would have to call the store or text a number to let an associate know they were there for a pickup. “I’m here” does that with the touch of a button.
Ankeny, Iowa-based Casey’s General Stores operates more than 2,300 c-stores in 16 Midwestern states, primarily Iowa, Missouri and Illinois. Casey’s is No. 4 on CSP’s2021 Top 202 ranking of U.S. c-store chains by store count.