How did I end up with apples and extra cheese?

Eating on a road trip has always been a challenge. A person can only take in so many burgers and fries. And it's frustrating to have to make a stop for gas and another for food, right? For as long as I can remember, gas stations have offered less than inventive food options, most of them with very little nutritional value. Sure, some of them have managed to share real estate with a McDonald's, but now we're back to the first problem - more burgers and fries!

Enter Sheetz, an inventive solution to the problem. Based in Philadelphia this company has been spreading outward from Altoona, PA for over fifty years. So far, they can be found in VA, MD, WV, and Ohio, too. Their basic model is simple - offer cafe style food and cheap gas in one stop. But they've added a key strategy that every retailer could learn from. Instead of ordering food from a person, customers enter their order through an interactive kiosk. The benefits are huge:

1) Control over product presentation in a franchised business.
Every customer who attempts to order at a Sheetz has the same experience, and there is no associate training required. Sandwiches, soup, and salads are all displayed on the computer screen. The descriptions are identical, the order in which they appear is the same and there is no personal bias delivered. I'm not certain, but I would bet the interface is managed by a central system in their corporate office. The value of this type of control over a franchise is impossible to measure.

2) Upsell is seamlessly integrated in to the experience.
Extra meat, cheese, maybe an additional packet of dressing for your salad? It's all right there in front of you, for an extra $0.69. That's not that much right? And what if you run out of dressing - it's so much better to be safe than sorry!

3) Ancillary sells can be displayed right at the customers finger tips.
A side salad would compliment that flatbread sandwich perfectly right? Oh, you're not interested, just push the next button.

Bonus points - not only do they have convenient kiosks in the store, they also have them at the pump. Talk about great product placement. This is a great technique to increase the total size of the purchase from a customer that was only planning to buy gas.

Sheetz has identified a way to make the customer feel like all of their advanced merchandising techniques are a service the customer deserves, not an annoying selling technique. Plus the food tastes great - so great that I almost always add a little something extra on.