Dive Brief:
- Rovertown has launched Integration Store, a marketplace tool that allows retailers to customize their apps with both native features and third-party integrations, according to a Monday press release.
- The Integration Store features “dozens of native features and third-party integrations powered by leading technology vendors,” according to the announcement. These items can be added anywhere a retailer likes within their app via a drag-and-drop interface
- Allowing c-store retailers to make many changes to their apps themselves provides “a stronger degree of control and flexibility,” said Rovertown Co-Founder and CEO Mike Philip in an interview.
Dive Insight:
As retailers’ vision and customer expectations for apps get more complex, St. Louis-based Rovertown has added a wide variety of customization options and features that companies can use.
The Integration Store allows Rovertown’s c-store customers to browse these features at their leisure and include the ones they want in their app. Retailers can click a toggle in Core, Rovertown’s web portal, and then add pieces like loyalty marketing, online ordering, tobacco offers, coupons, payments, gamification, age verification, scan-and-go, and more. Some are free to add, while others may require a contract with a third party.
Philip likened the Integration Store to platforms like Shopify or Wordpress, which allow customers to easily customize their experience. But he noted that while some platforms give retailers access to numerous third-party-developed apps — including options that may not work very well — the Integration Store will only include tech integrations that Rovertown itself has created.
“Rovertown’s doing all the development,” said Philip. “So we're very selective with what we build.”
Philip declined to list some of the integrations available at launch.
Once an app has been initially published by Rovertown, the retailers can usually make changes through the Integration Store and publish those changes to consumers without having to go back to Rovertown. There are a few exceptions, but “pretty much everything in the integration store does not require an app update,” said Philip.
Numerous c-stores have recently updated their apps, with companies like Parker’s, Kum & Go, Nouria, Hucks and 7-Eleven all reworking their apps in recent months, adding everything from enhanced security features to revamped loyalty programs and more.
Mapco, in conjunction with Rovertown, added personalized rewards, limited-time deals, mobile fuel pay with Venmo and a car racing game in June.
Other c-stores working with Rovertown include Stinker Stores, United Dairy Farmers and GoMart, according to Rovertown’s website.
Upcoming additions to the Integration Store will include tutorials via RoverUniversity, new native capabilities, more integrations and advanced automation.
