Chestnut Market’s Ryan Oettinger and Faheem Jamal Are Redefining the Store Experience

(upbeat music) - You're listening to the Future of Convenience Podcast, featuring senior retail executives and experts in the global convenience and mobility industry. - Well, welcome to Future Convenience Podcast. I'm joined today by my co-host, good friend, Ryan Eddinger. Ryan, great to have you back. I'm thrilled to be here, then. I'll never turn down an opportunity to meet with you and talk to the industry. - That's always good to get together with you, but you and your job. - You know, I am actually, and I'm with one of my new, my new partners in crime, and I'm proud to say that I'm the Chief Executive Officer of Chestnut Markets and Chestnut Petroleum Group, which is just an amazing, amazing convenience, retail and gasoline brand, which we're gonna learn a little bit more about for fame. - For fame, welcome to the podcast as well. - Thank you, then. Honored to be here. Very thankful that you asked. - I knew a director of C-Store Operations, so you know exactly what's going on in this store. - Everything. Everything that's going on in C-Store's every day. It's a lot of fun. - Very good. And it's family, it's family, you're from Delhi Go, and we're gonna be talking about some of the technologies that we see in the store, and I think it's very appropriate to have your, your expertise as far as that's concerned. - Thank you very much for the invitation. Great to be here with you guys, especially with real operators, who we strive to help. - What if opening a store didn't take months, but days? Venhub is redefining convenience retail with fully autonomous plug and play smart stores that operate 24/7 with zero staff on site. From airports to campuses to mixed use developments, Venhub delivers always open access, real-time data, and faster paths to revenue. This is the future of convenience retail. Learn more at venhub.com. - Let's find out a bit more about Chestnut markets. I mean, you're the CEO, Brian, but maybe you wanna throw that question, you know, to your director of C-Store Operations. - I absolutely do, because he has been in this business, I think, from when he was a young kid, and he's taught me a lot of what I know about the business. So, Fahim, why don't you share with all of our listeners a little about who Chestnut Market is, the markets we operate, the demographics, what are we really trying to achieve in this space? - Thanks, Ryan, and we're super excited to have you as our new leader, and as we continue to strive for growth and excellence in the industry, and be the best, we believe we already are, and we know we can get better every day. So Chestnut Market, we are the C-Store Arm of Chestnut, Petroleum, or Chestnut Group. We operate in New York, Jersey, and Connecticut. We have 75 company operated stores and growing. So, our main focus is consistent customer service every day when you come to Chestnut. When you come to Chestnut Market, we expect our customers expect consistency, great customer service, and always clean restaurants. - Yeah, yeah, I'm just gonna have to throw in, which parts of Connecticut are you in? Which towns in Connecticut? Just have to check that. - So, it's interesting, Connecticut we spread pretty much across the state. We go from the borders in Danbury, Fairfield County, all the way to Old Lime Connecticut. So, with Hartford sites in between, New Haven sites in between, so we're spread out really far, but hoping to bridge the gap between all of our C-Stores in the state. - I'll tell you a story when we're not recording, but I worked as a house painter in New Canaan, and nor, you know, when I was a student, about 37 years ago, that was one of my first jobs. Anyway, are you still doing painting? - I do, but only for my boss who lives with me. - I got you. - I got you. - I got you. - We could have you do some murals on the outside of our store along the Hutchinson River Parkway. We get 10,000 customers. What is it, the day a week? - I don't like to tell too many people how many, but yes, a lot. - Right, yeah. I'm gonna consider that offer. - H-Run, tell us why you're here and what you do. - Yeah, so, so, Deligo builds fast and secure checkout for C-Stores like Chestnut markets. We visually recognize products, we simply place the product, tap to pay, and that's it, simple, frictionless fast. So that's what we do. - And what are the outcomes for customers that you're looking to drive, H-Run? - So, primarily we want to help grow traffic. We want to improve the consumer experience and the speed of checkout and thus help customers win more trips. At the same time, we also want to help build baskets, right? So we can leverage our screens to very consistently upsell services. Whatever services are the most important to the customer be it food service, car wash, and so forth. And at the same time, of course, labor is a question. We help optimize labor. Our solution requires less stuff at the checkout. And at the same time, we do what we call self checkout. That's as good as stuff checkout. So you still have that interaction with your customers. But you need less labor at the checkout. So you can use labor for higher value touchpoint, such as keeping the toilets clean as an example that Fahim just shared. And finally, we also reduce checkout theft. So if you look at traditional self checkout, there's a lot of opportunity for intentional and unintentional theft. The camera sees it all. We get rid of that. So this is a really interesting technology for our industry, isn't it? It's around checkout. It's around reducing friction for the customer. We've all been trained to scan-- we have a lot of self checkout and you pay. We've all been trained to scan things. Do we like scanning things, not always, to be honest? I know you guys are actually working with Maschkin, aren't you? Tell us for him, tell us about Maschkin and how that's working for you with this kind of solution. So it's a similar kind of solution to what you do at Delhi. So Maschkin has been a great partner with us. We have it in a few of our sites, but the most prominent one that you can find is in our Hutchinson or Parkway site, where we have actually six Maschkins. We believe we're the largest-- the C-Sort with the most amount of Maschkins. And exactly what Eshtabhan was saying is we reallocated those customer service specialists to be truly customer service specialists. When you walk into the site, you can find a customer service specialist or a greeter at each side that's self checkout. There's three and three at the different entrants and exits. And their main job is to greet the customers they walk in the store. Welcome to Chestnut. They're there whenever a customer needs any assistance with anything in the store, as well as assisting the customers at the checkout, guiding them, hey, put all of your items down on the platform. It'll scan. You tap to pay, and you're good to go. So it's really helped us reduce lines. When you go into that site, historically, prior to our rebuild, there were always lines. And it kind of works as an deterrent from customers making purchases in the store. They would walk in to use the bathroom specifically, see a long line, and think to themselves, I need to get out of here as fast as possible. Whereas now they walk into the site, there's never a line. So they have the ease of mind to walk around the store, find something that they're looking for. And know that they don't have to wait to check out and get back on their way. Because we're in convenience, people want to be in and out. And that's why it's been a great partnership for us. >> You know, Dan, I was just going to ask, maybe a question for both of you just kind of hear the different perspectives is, one of the things that I've seen is really important to convenience is, obviously you want to increase basket size, and you want to have that opportunity to upsell. Earlier, you talked a little bit about, a self-checkout, staff checkout, and I'm thinking about engagement. So how does this technology really help to potentially upsell customers? Are there integrations with media, are there integrations with voice or sound? So I guess it's a question for you, Ashvon, and then what your company does, and then maybe Fahim, if you guys have thought of, I guess we shouldn't say you guys, we have thought about that in our stores as well. >> Yeah, so let me first touch on the engagement piece, right? Because I think that's number one. Because it's not just a fast in and out, it's also part of the experience. And we've got two different products. We've got what we call the Deligo Air, which is for over the counter transactions. Many C store transactions include overage products, for example, where assistance from a store, team member is needed. So that's one. And we've got the Deligo Mini, which is more for the ingesting and out transactions, where you're just a grab and go, you don't want to interact with anybody, you just want to be in and out as quick as possible. So I think it's very important to have the ability to maintain the engagement and to elevate that engagement and deliver that elevated engagement with less staff as Females also mentioned. In terms of upselling, I think each store is different. Probably your stores are slightly different to each other, and then other geographies and other brands are gonna be different as well. And depends on what, depending on the time of day, depending on the offering of the store, you want to choose what you want to upsell and how you want to engage your customer. And what we can help with is if you tell us what your choice is, we can very consistently put that in front of the customer. And we can, for example, if you've got a great food service offering, we can prompt that into every transaction. So I'm just going in to buy a bottle of water, but maybe I'm hungry, and I didn't consider that. And I don't have to go to a different screen. I'm gonna prompt it there, like, do you want to try our burgers and fries? And that's what we try and help do. We try and bring whatever service offering you have into every transaction. >> That's fantastic. If you even let you go, but to think through this, I'm a huge uptime bigger. It ever hurts uptime to one of the best sugar free energy drinks on the tried here at the show. >> It's phenomenal. And so we've got our loyalty app, our chestnut market loyalty app. And I'm a member of that, and we have a lot of promos. So for example, how does your solution, if I buy one uptime, but really they're actually two for four, if I'm a member of the loyalty app, how will it help me understand that if I just buy one, actually if I bought one more, I would get two for four, and they're integrated with my loyalty. Is the technology reached that yet? Or, and then we'll get back to how you use it for him, but I just want to understand that. >> Yeah, so I think you mentioned you're on the very phone platform. So with that, there is a possibility for two different things. One is you can upsell based on loyalty, right? So you start the checkout process, you enter your loyalty, and then we can display some loyal customer specific information to you. We know you like uptime, we've got a discount for you, do you want to add one more? There's a second option is where you just want to do upsell, you're at the checkout, you've got your uptimes in the merchandising gondola right at the checkout. And then you can prompt every customer and say, hey, have you considered this offer that we have now? You buy one, get one free. That's how we do it. >> Cool, I love it. So Fahit, how are we thinking about that engagement piece in our stores with the MassChin solution? >> So for us, it's by bringing the sales associate from behind the counter to the front and making them a true customer service specialist, right? So when they're in front of that counter, they're more likely to engage with that customer, right? Meet them when they're ready to check out prior to running them around the counter and trying to check them out quickly. And then they're seeing the items that the customer has in their hands as they approach the checkout. It's like, hey, that water's two per five. Hey, that buy two, you save a dollar. And they're able to ring that customer up immediately, right? So they're there, they're engaging, they're being true customer service specialists and they know the promotions, right? So instead of them trying to get through a line of 10 people deep, they have three checkouts each to deal with, right? And in this particular store, so they don't have to worry about engaging with a customer too long because there's two other places where somebody has to check out and they're not worrying about trying to get through the line quickly. So can I just add to that that I think I was pointing out what the technology can do or the technology can't do anything alone. And I think what Fahim is pointing at is very, very important, is how do we enable the store team to do more? And how can the store team do more? And how can we also help the store team with technology? So the two only work together and that's well, that's the outcome we strive to achieve with our customers. Absolutely, I'm firm believer that self-checkout will not work in our industry if you don't have that buy-in from your team members. They have to be willing to educate the customer and show them how and why to use the checkout. You know what Fahim, I don't like the word self-checkout. What I like much better is guided checkouts. Or AI checkouts. Yeah, but AI checkouts is a big word that can be used for many things. What we mean by guided checkout is that we don't need the store team to do the checkout, but we do need the store team to guide that process to some extent. I mean, last couple of days, a lot of podcasts, a lot of discussions with people. I think that one of the points that you've all just made, which is just coming out again and again, is we need technology that actually takes load off our staff and that they have a buy-in too. And I think that's just such an important point. The store teams are the ones that are going to, you know, they may pilot, but they're the ones who are going to say, we want to keep this, we don't just pilot it, we want you to roll it out to our stores. I think this is really important, don't you think, with technology? It's not just going to be a nice, shiny thing. It's got actually help that your store teams in businesses like yours Ryan. 100% and not only that then, I would say, it has to be somewhat integrated with existing suites, existing technology players. If a human eye were talking, you know, you can get overwhelmed, you can be here at NRF or NAX, you can watch the show, walk the show floor. There's so many different technology providers. And as a retailer, you know, you don't want to have 10 separate, right? So as you were talking, the integration between Verifone and, you know, what Delago is really critical, because then you don't have to have all of these players. It makes that ecosystem much more complicated. So, you know, what are the other problems, you know, looking at an exciting technology show like NRF, what are the other solutions, there's retailers that you're looking to, problems that you're looking to solve, you know, what else catches your eye here? And of course, you can comment as well on that. >> So for us, we're looking for digital shelf label solutions, something that can help our, you know, our store staff go through retail price changes, planagrams much, much easier, and also possibly test day part pricing to see if it's something that makes sense in our industry. We're also, when I come to a show like NRF, you just go and you see the technology, right? Sometimes you don't know you need something until you see it. I think I have a lot about the first, I'm thinking iPhone, but actually iPod before the iPhone. Nobody knew they needed the iPod until it was there, right? So a show like NRF and NAC, sometimes you see something that's so technologically advanced, you never knew you needed until you saw it. >> No, I think it's a great point. It's from what catches you go to a lot of shows. What catches you right at NRF? >> Yeah, I think digital self-label's was a very good example because it's one of those things that helps enable store teams to do more. Obviously I look at checkout a lot. I see there's a very strong sort of self-checkout offering. I think the USC store market is pretty early in the self-checkout game, and there are a lot of people with many solutions, and of course I look at all sorts of visual AI solutions, and we use visual AI to help elevate checkout, but there are many other solutions out there with regards to operations, whether that's one shelf availability, a safety, and so forth. So there's lots of things out there. >> Yeah, very good. Dan, we're real quick before we go on the comment did, it's fun about the US being early in the self-checkout game. Can you give our listeners an idea of what does good look like in that space? What are we seeing from other countries or other parts of the retail ecosystem on the evolution of what self-checkout might look like? Because as I think about self-checkout, you've got the traditional scan, right? As a customer, I come up with scan. Your solution is different, you put it all on the plate, and boom, where are we going? >> Yeah, so one comparison I'd like to bring is the convenience space in Europe. So in Europe, there is a good part of the convenience industry that has 100% self-checkout. So you go in, and the only way you can check out is self-checkout. And it's great because it brings speed and efficiency, and then it's not so great because it removes the traditional self-checkout, so it removes the interaction between the store team member and the customer for one. And what we also see is that theft, checkout theft, sort of creeps in because you've got this sort of intentional, non-intentional, missed scan, so to say. And that has a real impact on the bottom line. And I think when I look at the US market, there are a few stores who are, or a few chains that are, you know, forward, Parker's Kitchen is one of those. I think they've got like 80% uptake. >> Yeah, maybe. >> And then there are some stores where we just put in an extra self-checkout as an afterthought, and then nobody's using it. And I think what we want to help the industry with is to make self-checkout. That's as good as a staff checkout. It brings the benefits, it brings the speed, and it brings the efficiency, but it keeps the interaction between the consumer and the store team, and it keeps that potential checkout theft and check, all while providing a great experience. Something that you look forward to, and not something that you don't look forward to, because I guess when you go to Walmart and you think about yourself, check out, that's not the best part of your day, is it? >> It's not just Walmart, it's any one of these-- >> I don't want to look on them, I don't want to look. >> No, no, right, but I use self-checkout, and it's just like a disaster. Maybe it's just me, the checker. But there's always an error with that kind of checkout. But I've used your product, but I've seen your product, I've used my machine, and I'm looking forward to the next iteration. >> Right, I'll take that to your question as well, and just build on what you said this year. >> What's the problem? >> Because it's a subject which we've become quite fast-listing. In markets like the UK, self-checkouts have been out a long time. So consumers are well trained in using self-checkouts, scanning products and so on. So that has ceased to be an issue some time ago. And, you know, retail's like Tesco, say, it's with Mark's suspensions, particularly, you know, they are, they have decades of experience with self-checkout. What we've seen more recently in the last few years is for that gray area that Ishran mentioned in terms of, I didn't, I meant to scan it, I didn't, or, you know, perhaps theft, you know, outright, outright theft. It's all theft, but, you know, deliberate theft as opposed to semi-accidental theft. That gray area seems to have got quite a bit bigger in the last few years in markets like the UK. So there is more, if you look at conventional self-checkout, there's a lot more of a theft problem than they used to be. Now there might be a whole range of reasons for that, but it is, to me, you know, it's pretty apparent. So retailers are looking to, in a way, they have to carry on with some form of self-checkout because, you know, the staffing costs or just the amount of customers going through those busy London stores in the train stations, you know, to have any other solution is in more or less impossible now. So I think that's where AI can come in in terms of reducing the scale of accidental theft or deliberate theft or miscans. You know, you're the expert on this, Its fan, but you'd agree with that position, would you? - Absolutely. And I don't think it's just the, you know, just the London train stations that we have to think about. We can think about a sea-store, you know, in Connecticut, as an example, where you, you know, from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m., you probably have a morning rush, where, you know, people heading to work and so forth are, you know, wanting to fuel up their cars and their bodies at the same time. And you wanna make that experience as fast and easy as possible. And you wanna make it the trouble with traditional self-checkout is you put the responsibility on the consumer, like, you gotta do the work, that's one thing, but you gotta do it, right? You're not allowed to make a mistake. What we do is we take the work back, we say, you don't have to do the work, you just place it on the counter. And by the way, you don't have responsibility either, because we see everything, and we recognize everything at the same time, you just have to tap and pay, and that's all. >> You know, and that really is, I mean, kind of a bridge for the next part, what you just said is we take the work out. You don't have to do any work, and that is really the name, you know, the name of the game when it comes to even AI technology, right? How do we get agents to help think about how we can take work out and how we can improve the accuracy of the outputs of that work, right? >> So Dan, I don't know if we want to have any kind of discussion around, you know, where AI's taking us, I mean, obviously everyone's talking through it, but that's an interesting piece that you brought up. >> I mean, I've asked this question, you know, 20 times, since it came here, and obviously on the podcast, and I think that, you know, the answer I'm getting from all the retailers is like, we need the AI to focus on problems, and we know we need to solve, you know, real problems that we have now, not, you know, the whole panellope of solutions that may be sexy and interesting, but aren't going to solve the day-to-day problems that we have. If technology can free up the store teams, give them more time, you're retraining them for him, you know what to do at that time, and you can actually, you know, really grow your brand and your business culture, can't you, you know, Ryan, as you go forward. If technology is freeing up those store teams, it's going to be implemented. And if this, you know, so I think that seems to be the key thing that's coming out of here. There's a lot of interesting technology around some of it around AI, but it's the stuff that actually is going to improve the efficiency of your business, and allow you to differentiate your business with your, over your competitors against, you know, with your customers actually understanding what that interaction is and valuing that interaction with your store teams, you know, that's the game changer. >> Absolutely. Like we spoke earlier, is repurposing our sales associates to be customer service specialists. That way we get a consistent customer experience across our network. So using the technology that's out there, and maybe the technology that's coming to give our customers the best possible experience we can. >> You know, Dan, when I think about AI in our industry, and I've tried to kind of put it, how do I maybe explain it to my 12 year old son? To me, AI helps us educate, automate, and generate. Actually, it's different. Automate, educate, and generate. So you take a work process, you take a function, how do you actually put technology in to automate that and do it consistently, like Dell and Go does. Once you've automated that, you're going to get data. That data is then going to educate decision makers within that business, and once we're armed with the right data, we can then generate either the right output or the right revenue for looking at improving revenues. So for me, I've looked at most AI opportunities in those three buckets of automating, educating, and generating. >> I think that's a very good point, and it's a good point to end on, Ryan. I hope you guys are going to invite me along to come and have a look at chess at markets, because I've heard a lot about you, but I have not visited you yet. So, you know, we got to arrange that for him. We got to see how long Dan's here, and maybe give him a special tour, huh? >> Come on up anytime, we're always ready. >> Come on, here's Hills Saturday, and Ishvan, thanks for joining us again. >> Thank you. >> And thank you guys for taking part in future convenience podcast. It's always a pleasure. >> Thank you for listening to the Future of Communion's podcast, produced by Dan Munford, Jennifer Gisint, and Lorraine Evans. It is produced and edited and mixed by Carolyn Schneer and music is provided by Jukebox Music. Learn more at globalcommeans.com. Before you go, I want to tell you about a new exciting competition from Insight Research. The smartest store in the world competition is focused on the decisive adoption of new technologies. We'll showcase what best practice looks like as the convenience retail industry tips from pilots to production. This competition goes beyond a focus on the four walls of the store and looks at tech developments in the whole retail value chain. Compete to have your store declared the smartest store in the world. When recognition, press and the bragging rights of being at the forefront of technology as AI and technology supercharges retail. Entries are due March 26th. The smartest store in the world competition is hosted by Insight Research and NACS, along with Accenture Surveying as the official knowledge partner. It's sponsored by Envenco Power by volunteer, Plexor, and Venhub. Head over to globalcommeans.com and search the smartest store competition to learn more.