Article

Sheetz uses Radiant ordering kiosks in new mall unit

Sheetz has used ordering kiosks in its c-stores for years. Now the company has rolled out a food-only store with new terminals.

January 20, 2004

Sheetz Inc. has been a front-runner in self-service technology in its almost 300 convenience stores. Now the company has rolled out a foodservice-only operation in a shopping mall in Winston-Salem, N.C., using a spiffed-up version of the ordering kiosks.

Customers ordering subs, burgers, salads and gourmet coffee from Sheetz at the Hanes Mall use self-service kiosks from Radiant Systems Inc., the vendor Sheetz has used for almost a decade in its c-stores.

John Moulton, director of stores systems for Sheetz Inc., said, "We've done kiosks company wide for eight years. The one in the mall is the fourth iteration." What's new about the mall kiosks is the interface, meant to attract a new kind of traffic, and use of back-office management software to track inventory and speed order delivery.

Past imperfect

"Going back about 10 years, when we first looked at self-service technology, it was for touchscreen point of sale. Radiant was the first with that technology," said Moulton.

Sheetz c-stores had the "Made to Order" food line at that time, and customers placed their orders by checking off items on a pad of paper with a golf pencil.

"It was a pretty bad process," laughed Moulton. "Customers had to find the right pad, interpret the text, and figure out how to customize their orders. On the production side, employees had to read and interpret the checkmarks. It was cumbersome."

Sheetz started talking with Radiant about using POS technology to let customers place orders and send the information automatically to kitchen monitors. Today, all 50 million meals served each year at Sheetz stores across Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia are ordered through the kiosks.

Directing purchases

A benefit of the system in the new store is the ability to control what customers see on the touchscreens, leading to increased upsells, according to Sheetz.

"We can determine what we offer. We can present nice pictures of the food and suggestively sell items by leading customers down a certain path," Moulton explained.

"The system also makes it very easy for us to add a new product. We can control how to push the new item. We can make a picture of the product the first thing customers see on the screen, for instance."

Once the customer places an order, the order is routed to the kitchen and sent to particular workstations. "It has made the kitchen more efficient," said Moulton.

Added Jimmy Frangis, senior director of the petroleum and c-store group at Radiant, "Sheetz has improved its throughput during peak hours. And the order accuracy has gotten better, as well."

The system also allows Sheetz to track inventory, which makes the company better at ordering from distributors. Radiant's inventory-management software allows Sheetz to monitor the use of ingredients right down to the recipe level, allowing the company to better manage waste, spoilage and out-of-stocks.

"Waste is the biggest cost issue in foodservice outside of labor," said Frangis.

Sheetz would not disclose financial information illustrating tangible benefits, but Frangis said, "For foodservice-ordering applications, in general, we are seeing significant return on investment in less than one year."

A standard two-kiosk food-ordering implementation costs between $10,000 and $12,000 for hardware and software, Frangis said.

The cost is justified to Sheetz. Said Moulton, "This deployment is a success for us because it fits our style so well. We are all about choice, and having items made to order."