Russell's Convenience Rolls Out Frictionless Checkout Experience to All Its Stores

DENVER — Three years after opening its first cashierless store, Russell's Convenience implemented frictionless checkout to all 19 locations.

With the rollout, Russell's Convenience becomes the first convenience store retailer to use Salt Lake City-based Skip's back-office open application programming interfaces (APIs).

Skip's "scan & go" mobile checkout app will enable Russell's Convenience to reach customers directly to inform them of deals and in-store promotions, driving both the satisfaction and frequency of shopping trips, according to a Skip release.

"Offering a frictionless shopping experience to our customers increases the frequency of transactions. By making the shopping experience as fast as possible, we open up more shopping opportunities to our customers that are on break or just short on time. With Skip, we can accommodate any shopper's schedule without disrupting our operations," said Tom Bachrodt, Denver area regional manager of Russell's Convenience.

Owned by HJB Convenience Corp., Russell's Convenience has c-stores across Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Honolulu and Detroit.

"From both a customer experience and technical perspective, we have always sought to push the limits of a typical store. Similar to opening our own self-serve store, we engaged Tenderfoot Software to customize our POS [point-of-service] and loyalty systems because our needs weren't met in the market. The same is true with Skip, as their product combined with our operations greatly enhances the service for our customers," said Raymond Huff, president of HJB Convenience Corp.

Knowing that Skip didn't have an existing integration with Tenderfoot Software's POS and back-office tools, Skip "was eager to have them leverage its APIs for connecting their stores to the cloud," according to the release.

"For years, retailers across the country have requested more connection options to our mobile shopping ecosystem. It's very exciting to publicize our APIs in JSON and NAXML formats, but to have launched our first public store with them is even more of a rush," commented Peter Nichols, Skip's director of product.

"Ray and his team were ideal partners to work with and we look forward to extending the network with more like-minded retailers and software systems," he added.