Dive Brief:
- Gas Express, the largest Circle K franchisee in the U.S., has partnered with e-commerce solutions company Lula Commerce to bring enhanced third-party delivery to its 180-plus stores, the companies announced last week.
- The Atlanta-based retailer, which operates Circle K stores in Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Arkansas, has already implemented Lula’s digital tools at about 100 locations.
- Gas Express is working with Lula as part of a larger initiative that made Lula’s tools available to more than 800 franchised Circle K stores in the U.S., Adit Gupta, co-founder and CEO at Lula Commerce, confirmed via email.
Dive Insight:
The partnership will make the stores’ integration with DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub easier for workers to manage. Lula will oversee services like menu digitization, inventory management, customer engagement tools and business intelligence for Gas Express, taking that burden off the in-store workers.
"Over the past several months, the implementation of [Lula’s] program has significantly enhanced our operations, sales and customer experience," said Stacy Winne, vice president of operations of Gas Express. "Lula’s platform seamlessly integrated with our existing systems. This not only smoothed out our processes but also made the rollout and setup incredibly quick and easy."
Gas Express’s integration of these delivery tools comes as it’s dealing with the aftermath of a data breach that affected an undisclosed number of employees. At least one worker has brought a lawsuit claiming the company didn’t alert workers for more than half a year that their information had been compromised.
