J. Polep Deploys Verge Retail Technologies

HENDERSON, N.C. — Convenience industry distributor J. Polep is raising the tech stakes at convenience stores across New England, Pennsylvania and New York with its latest partnership with Verge Retail.

J. Polep has deployed Verge Promote to thousands of its customers, with plans to launch the Verge C-tech and SalesTech platforms, which offer a customer app and a sales representative app for creating and managing orders, in early 2015.

Verge Promote is a smartphone application that enables distributors to push the latest deal or limited-time promotion to c-store retailers. The distributor-branded app can be deployed within 30 days and requires no IT integration.

"We always look for smart, innovative ways to help our customers increase sales and improve their bottom lines, and Verge technologies support this mission," said Eric Polep, director of sales at J. Polep. "With Promote, our customers immediately began realizing benefits, which is what we'd heard when speaking with other distributors using Verge solutions."   

With Promote, retailers can choose what type of promotions they receive and place orders directly from the app. In addition, they can provide instant feedback to their distributor, who can then respond in real-time, as well as monitor ongoing order activity with the platform's intuitive analytics capabilities.

"We're excited about this partnership with J. Polep, which has already improved communication to their customers, and will soon standardize customer ordering and extend sales rep capabilities," said Carson Kuehne, chief innovations officer for Verge Retail.  

J. Polep, founded as Polep Tobacco Co. in Salem, Mass. in 1898, ranks among the top 15 c-store distributors in the United States and services 4,000 retailers in New England, Pennsylvania and New York.

Verge Retail is the technology spinoff of North Carolina-based M.R. Williams Inc. Currently, the company's technology is deployed across more than 2,200 retail outlets.