After a stint as a financial adviser at JPMorgan Chase & Co., Quinn Ricker returned to the family business in 2005, ready to make a difference at the company founded by his parents, Jay and Nancy Ricker.
“Ricker’s is a very different place than the one I came back to,” he recently told CSP. “It was really important for us to embrace technology. One of my first projects was to basically gut our entire software and replace it with a new enterprise platform.”
The retailer is now poised for more change. In August, the company announced that its Ricker’s chain is rolling out a mobile checkout technology chainwide through Salt Lake City-based Skip, which developed the Skip Checkout app. With the app, customers scan items with their phones as they shop, allowing them to bypass the checkout line. Once they finish shopping, their receipt appears in the app. They show their receipt and purchased items to a store employee and walk out the door.
“We use the latest technologies, like our mobile app and our new self-checkout, to create a frictionless experience that can compete against the best in brick-and-mortar and digital experience,” says Ricker, now the company’s president and CEO.
Ricker’s recently was acquired by grocer Giant Eagle, Pittsburgh, which also owns the GetGo c-store chain. The c-store chains will join forces in the Hoosier State, and Ricker is joining the Giant Eagle organization in a yet-to-be-announced role.
“I love where the future is going,” Ricker says.
1989—Year the first Ricker’s convenience store was purchased, in Middletown, Ind.