This article originally published in Self-Service World magazine's special section, FOCUS: C-store Self-Service, Oct 2007.
Robo Tom's, developed by the York, Pa.-based Shipley Stores LLC and opened in September 2001, is considered by many to be the first fully automated convenience store in the United States. Although it closed in 2004, the idea of an automated store lives on as convenience stores continue to examine how vending can minimize labor and real estate costs and maximize consumer satisfaction.Shipley's designed RoboTom's sites to be a complete convenience experience with several vending machines offering convenience- store staples and hot food items such as pizza, while also providing unattended fueling.
How did Shipley's come up with the idea of Robo Tom's? "We had a location that we really didn't know what to do with at the time," said Roger Fuller, Shipley's store systems administrator.
"We got initial good reaction, but I don't think the community was ready for that — to go to an unmanned convenience store and get their oil and milk out of the same machine, even though they never touched each other. We were a few years ahead of where our community was ready to be," he said.
In another market, Shipley's opened a second, scaled down Robo Tom's that enjoyed better customer reception. Still, the base wasn't there and the company discontinued its operations.
But the story of vending doesn't end there. In 2003, the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) profi led three more entrants into vending:
> Redbox, a small-footprint vending operation outside a handful of McDonald's restaurants in the Washington, D.C., area, featured dozens of convenience items and even DVD rentals. Its original format was, like RoboTom's, discontinued in 2004, but redbox continues to evolve.
> In the United Kingdom, grocery chain J Sainsbury opened a fully automated, 130-SKU vending operation outside one of its convenience stores. The vending option was intended for customers who wanted to shop in the wee hours, when the convenience store was closed. To Sainsbury's surprise, it became popular with customers at all times, even when the convenience store was open.
> SmartMart, in Memphis, Tenn., opened in 2003 as the world's first fully automated drive-thru convenience store where customers can select from 2,000 items via touchscreen. For age-restricted product sales, an interactive video system is used to verify the customer's age.
And last year the vending story continued as NACS profi led Shop24, located on the campus of Morrisville College in upstate New York.
Shop24 is not a new concept — its units are installed in seven countries and have recorded more than 60 million consumer transactions in 160 locations throughout Europe. However, its U.S. debut was November 2005 at Morrisville College, where it offered students and employees 24-hour access to 200 items, from soda to milk to iPod download cards.
The reason for installing Shop24 was pure economics, said Glenn Gaslin, general manager of the Morrisville Auxiliary Corporation, which manages student services. For 15 years, the school operated a convenience store with limited hours of operation, and its sales never covered its expenses. "We were losing money, and we weren't providing the service I thought we should provide," he said. "When we made a decision to install Shop24, we knew that the students would like this."
By making Shop24 and all of the other vending machines capable of accepting student IDs for payment, sales rocketed. "They absolutely love it. Our sales increased 40 percent just by adding the card swipe on the machine. They don't have to carry cash. All they need is their ID card. It's the same card they use to get into their residence hall room and into a lot of the classrooms," Gaslin said.
"I don't think it's a 100- percent replacement for a convenience store, where you can go in and if you want to buy a coffee and set it up for the exact amount of sugar and cream that you want and shop around what you want for a snack," Gaslin said. "But it will replace the 24-hour need — the convenience store that's open 24 hours a day and does $10 in sales between midnight and five in the morning."
"It's just a convenience store that's run by a computer and a robot."
Shipley's Fuller said, "[Robo Tom's] was a good concept. We learned that the customer was just not ready for that concept in the convenience store industry."
But as more entrants have begun to evolve the concept, it appears that the customer is warming up to the idea.
Jeff Lenard is NACS vice president of communications and oversees media relations, communications and marketing on behalf of the convenience and petroleum retailing industry.
