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Safety Measures for Convenience Stores During COVID-19

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Since December 2019, Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2, has become a household name and impacted every industry in the world and businesses are restructuring operations to address safety concerns and reduce transmission of COVID-19. Non-essential businesses have shut down or transitioned to remote work solutions, but essential businesses, like your local convenience store, don’t have that option, and remain open.
 

Convenience Stores in the US During COVID-19

The United States alone has roughly 153,000 convenience stores, serving 156 million people per day, accordingly to the website NACS, the leading global trade association dedicated to advancing convenience and fuel retailing. Expand that out to all areas of the world with a 7-Eleven, the world largest international convenience store chain, and you are serving billions of people annually. This poses a significant threat to the health and safety of associates and customers in light of COVID-19. Especially considering one of the only ways we know how to prevent coronavirus is to reduce the transmission through surface contact and social distancing. People are coming to convenience stores with very high expectations for cleanliness and sanitation and according to Convenience Store News: “Cleanliness at convenience stores is significantly impacting consumers' ratings and foot traffic at gas stations across the United States.”

Sanitation and Cleanliness Becoming a #1 Priority

For the last several weeks, convenience stores have been hard at work upgrading their operations to meet these new and expanding demands for sanitation and cleanliness and many are implementing new store layouts to comply with guidelines for social distancing. Whether the customer is at the gas pump, the water cooler, or the checkout counter, these changes are informing the customer experience and convenience stores need to implement changes at many levels as we enter this new era of COVID-19. The four most important coronavirus preventative measures are going to include making changes to store flow, customer check out, gas pumps and surface sanitation.

Four Coronavirus Preventative Measures for Convenience Stores

Store Flow

When considering store flow, convenience stores need to take into account the social distancing of six feet that is being recommended by the Center For Disease Control. This can be challenging in the small footprint of most convenience stores, which average about 2500 square feet. The largest convenience store chain, 7-Eleven, is installing high-quality floor decals that instruct customers to practice social distancing in stores, while other brands like Wawa, and GlobalPartners LP are also following suit.
If the footprint allows, some stores are always installing floor decals to inform customers of the desired traffic flow. To implement these changes successfully, stores need to provide signage to inform and educate consumers using banner stands and countertop signs are great tools.
According to Food Navigator USA, to minimize in-store traffic altogether, convenience stores around the country are even implementing online ordering and curbside pickup, something traditionally reserved for big box stores and restaurants. This emerging trend is taking the term “convenience store” to a whole new level in this country.

Customer Check Out

There are several things that convenience stores can do to enhance safety for customers and associated during the in-store check out process.

• Have hand sanitizers available for customers either on counters or in manual hand sanitizer stands
• Install countertop cashier shields or hanging shields as a safety barrier between customer and associate
• If stores have multiple check out lines, stores can install physical barriers, like Skyskraper Mounts, between lines to enhance safety between customers
• Reduce the exchange of currency and coin and encourage payment via credit or debit card and ensure the payment terminal is outside the safety barrier for easy access by the customer

Gas Pumps

Of the 153,000 convenience stores in America, 122,000 also sell fuel so it is important for stores to take into account coronavirus disinfection efforts at the gas pump, which according to Kimberly Clark Professional, are among the dirtiest surfaces we come into contact with on a regular basis. According to GasBuddy.com, consumers are being advised to bring hand sanitizer wipes, paper towels and surgical/plastic gloves with them to the pump. Consumer Reports offer three specific recommendations for consumers:

1. Wear surgical gloves
2. Use hand sanitizer wipes for disinfecting the dispenser and payment terminal
3. Use hand sanitizer before getting back in the vehicle

Since access to, and compliance with these recommendations varies from state to state, stores may wish to provide these products as an added convenience to customers to help reduce the potential transmission of COVID19. Stores can have hand sanitizer wipes and disinfecting wipes available for use at the pump to disinfect the handle, fuel selection and payment screens. Hand sanitizer wipe stands are easily installed at each fuel station or use signage to direct people where they can find disinfecting wipes before fueling up. Installing hand sanitizer dispensers that customers can use after pumping can also enhance sanitization. In some states, like New Jersey, fuel attendants are required to pump gas for all customers.

Surface Sanitation

It is no surprise that cleanliness and sanitization is extremely important to customers during COVID-19. According to NACS, the average convenience store has an average of 1400 transactions per day. If even half of those are in-store purchases that is 700 opportunities of potential transmission of coronavirus. Because of this, it is extremely important that store associates are trained and performing more frequent sanitization especially on frequently touched surfaces such as payment keypads, door handles, countertops, and gas pump terminals.
Some brands, like Wawa, are taking this very seriously with the implementation of a Sanitization Swat team known as Clean Force, as part of Wawa’s Incident Response Team. As part of sanitization efforts, many convenience stores are also implementing additional protections and safety policies. This includes providing and requiring all store employees to ear masks and gloves, more frequent hand-washing standards; wellness temperature checks for store employees at the start of shifts and providing more hand-sanitizer stations for employees and customers.

Obstacle to Opportunity

Convenience stores are facing new obstacles in light of coronavirus, but many in the industry would argue that it is also creating opportunity. The ability to be innovative, and pivot quickly to meet new demands is going to be very telling for the convenience store industry, and many brands are already hard at work. With the increased demand for sanitation, stores have an opportunity to hire new staff. 7-Eleven announced they would be adding 20,000 new jobs as a result. With the need to better manage store flow and efficiency, stores can improve operations. As consumers prefer to stay close to home the local convenience store has an opportunity to expand its offerings.
Pivot. Innovate, Implement. The coronavirus is here to stay and convenience stores have a real opportunity to enhance their value in their communities with quick response, innovation and action to implement changes that improve the customer experience.