Convenience stores handle an estimated 54 million age-restricted transactions every day, according to the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS). C-store retailer Plaid Pantry’s compliance rate exceeds 98%, thanks to a strict policy requiring employees to scan every ID, according to the company.
The Beaverton, Oregon-based chain of 107 stores has a consistent internal sting program where it sends people who look young into a store to buy an age-restricted product. If the cashier fails to check their ID, they are retrained, and if they fail a second time, Plaid Pantry fires them. If the employee succeeds in checking identification, they receive free merchandise, like a T-shirt or hat. The c-store chain performs these compliance checks on all new employees within their first 30 days.
These internal checks are conducted in addition to compliance checks by authorities such as the Food and Drug Administration, the Oregon Health Authority, state police, local police and the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Association, said Jonathan Polonsky, CEO of Plaid Pantry.
- Plaid Pantry is No. 66 on CSP’s 2025 Top 202 ranking of U.S. convenience-store chains by store count.
“I think the differentiator between us and everybody else is that internal program,” he said.
Before employees work a cash register, they complete a half-day training, which is about 60% focused on age verification through videos and role playing. There are classes every few days with new employees, and then they spend three to four days with a store manager to make sure they understand.
Plaid Pantry uses systems that work together by identifying products as age restricted, prompting the employee to scan the ID and logging the transaction. These systems include back-office management from PDI Technologies, a software company based in Alpharetta, Georgia, and a point-of-sale (POS) payment platform from Verifone, New York.
“There’s an evolution happening in terms of training and education that happens at retail, an evolution in terms of the signage.” —J.B. Simko, Philip Morris International
There are many avenues to take to train c-store employees on age verification. Some chains have their own human resources department that offer training, but smaller brands may not have that internally, said Doug Anderson, president of We Card, Arlington, Virginia.
Non-profit organization We Card offers three online training courses to retailers—an employee course, manager course and refresher course. It includes federal and state-specific regulation requirements for different types of products and even includes gaming so it’s not too boring, Anderson said.
Continuous training is important because of the high turnover rate of employees at c-stores, said Kara Calderon, head of sustainability and community engagement at Reynolds American Inc., Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
While employees need to be trained in verifying age, it’s “an awful lot of things they have to remember in terms of volume limitations, manufacturer requirements, state laws and federal mandates,” said Stephanie Sikorski, vice president of strategic initiatives at NACS and CEO of age verification technology TruAge, Alexandria, Virginia.
Technology can help.
IDScan.net offers convenience retailers its Veriscan technology, which verifies IDs via their barcodes. The tech is also integrated with forensic document readers like the scanners that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) uses that assess IDs in ultraviolet light, white light and infrared light, looking at the security features like the holograms and micro print. It determines authenticity with 95% to 99% accuracy, said Jillian Kossman, chief operating officer at IDScan.net, New Orleans.
We Card offers an age checker app. Retailers can set their store’s location, and it will provide scanning results for tobacco, e-cigarettes, vaping products and alcohol.
In addition to the app, the organization offers a 365-day calendar that highlights the most recent year and date that an ID needs to show. It also provides retailers with downloadable content such as written policy statements or best practices. The federal minimum age for sale of tobacco products in the United States was raised to 21 from 18 in December 2019.
“A lot of what we do is just equipping that single store, or small operator to have as much content available to them so they can parallel what the larger chains are able to do,” said Anderson of We Card.
We Card also gives retailers free in-store decals that say “Be a real influencer” to deter customers from buying a minor tobacco products. Another sign says, “If they're under 21 no bumming, no borrowing and no buying for.”
Retailers are getting positive reactions from customers who appreciate that they're taking it seriously, said Anderson.
“It can be hard to say no or turn someone away, so we're giving [employees] the tools and the confidence to do so,” said J.B. Simko, vice president and chief civil society and underage prevention officer at Stamford, Connecticut-based Philip Morris International, which is an advisory council member for We Card. “There’s an evolution happening in terms of training and education that happens at retail, an evolution in terms of the signage.”
Reynolds requires all retail partners to maintain visible We Card materials, Calderon said, and the company also sponsors TruAge, a technology launched by NACS and tech standard association Conexxus that can scan a traditional driver’s license, a mobile ID and a preconfigured QR code on the TruAge app.
TruAge, which is free to retailers, was also designed to help the industry avoid potential future swipe fees from for-profit providers, which could cost the industry another $4.1 billion, Sikorski said.
The difference between TruAge and other scanning technologies is that instead of extracting more than 30 pieces of personal identifiable information, TruAge only looks at four pieces of personal data—the driver's license issuer, the license number, the expiration date and the date of birth, Sikorski said.
“I would love to see that the convenience channel is the most responsible channel for the sale of age restricted products,” said Sikorski. “I don't think that that's impossible.”
We Card also has a mystery shop service as a management tool for convenience stores to measure how their employees are performing at carding.
“What we've heard on the street from retailers participating is that it acts like a training tool,” said Anderson. “Not only is it measuring, but employees quickly learn that the store owners are monitoring them.”
When retailers first sign up for the mystery shop, Anderson said, they may have a 65% pass, 35% fail ratio in the first month. After three months, it typically jumps up to 84% pass, 16% fail. After six months, it reaches 89% pass, 11% fail. At 12 months, stores are usually over a 95% pass, 5% fail rate.
“I would love to see that the convenience channel is the most responsible channel for the sale of age restricted products.” — Stephanie Sikorski, NACS and TruAge
Fake IDs are a leading cause of tobacco products getting into the hands of minors, with 10% of high school students and 40% of college students admitting to owning a fake ID, according to IDScan.net.
“Now, most fake ID creators know how to create a barcode that scans,” said Kossman of IDScan. “You got to do a little bit deeper analysis if you're looking to catch fake IDs.”
If a barcode on an ID scans, employees will often assume that it’s good to go. There are many scenarios that call for multiple forms of verification. Minors use siblings’ IDs, so a visual test against the photo is necessary. A sibling’s ID could also pass the age requirement but be expired.
Taking it one step further, an employee might assume that the ID is valid if the customer hands it to them in the first place, said Anderson.
Sometimes an underage person will present their underage ID to cashier, and then the cashier thinks, “Well, they've got to be old enough because they had the where-with-all to pull their ID out and give it to me.”
Interested in learning more about the latest in convenience-store technology? Don't miss C-StoreTEC 2025 (October 27-29, Plano, TX)—the industry's premier technology leadership event created by retailers, for retailers. Visit https://cstoretec.com to secure your spot at this groundbreaking conference where convenience retail leaders collaborate to drive digital transformation and accelerate growth.
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.