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Many e-commerce platforms are built to serve restaurants or big box retailers. Convenience stores work with age‑restricted items, messy assortments, late‑night peaks, and thin staffing. Winning here is about finding a partner that addresses and supports these unique needs. This guide will outline how we recommend approaching potential e-commerce partners at the NACS Show.
Before you talk to vendors, align on a few decisions that will shape everything else. Decide your channel mix (third‑party, first‑party, or both) and who actually owns operations day to day. Be clear on the pace of rollout and your compliance strategy for alcohol and tobacco. Finally, set your data stance and define success with a simple target for cancellations, GMV, and uptime. With those anchors in place, vendor conversations move faster and stay focused.
Who creates accounts, negotiates fees, configures service areas and hours, publishes menus, manages tablets, and handles network‑specific outages? Who informs stores when DSP policies change?
Who owns images, categories, modifiers, combos, taxes, and fees? How often are price updates pushed and verified? What are the rules for real‑time item availability, delists for out‑of‑stocks, and seasonal menus? What is your digitization plan (data normalization, product photography, barcodes/PLUs, descriptions, nutrition/allergens where required) and who executes it by store? How long will initial digitization take per store and how will it be maintained?
Which stores are serviceable and likely to drive revenue based on delivery coverage, driver supply, predicted demand, past sales, and hours; how you stage the rollout; and how you revisit underperforming locations.
Who funds and configures promos (percent/$ off, BOGO, mix‑and‑match, category/item level, time‑of‑day “happy hour,” first‑order, loyalty)? Can 1P codes and DSP promos run concurrently? What are the guardrails for stacking, exclusions (age‑restricted), limits, and caps? Who measures lift, margin impact, and cancellations tied to promos?
Pickup, delivery, curbside; order scheduling; throttling by hour/capacity; delivery zones, minimums, small‑order fees, and driver supply considerations.
How does your platform work with items that require age verification. What happens if an item is undeliverable due to an inability to verify the customer’s age?
Who trains staff on using the tablet, accepting orders, substitutions, and driver handoff? What materials exist (SOP one‑pagers, videos, counter posters, QR codes)? Who handles refreshers for turnover? What happens if a tablet or delivery network is offline?
Who answers customer questions, handles escalations, and triggers refunds? What’s the playbook for partials vs full refunds? How are disputes created, evidenced, tracked to outcome, and measured for win rate and recovery dollars?
Confirm integrations for your POS and back office; real‑time price/tax updates; alerting on failures; and plans for version changes and edge cases (partial syncs, retries).
Which KPIs are standard? How are exports delivered in real time? Who owns the data and how are business reviews run?
Funding flows, deposit timing, fee transparency by channel, tax calculation/ownership, and show how you reconcile taxes/fees/tips to deposits across 1P and each DSP
A few patterns show up again and again. If you see these, dig deeper.
Lula Commerce is the most comprehensive solution built for convenience retailers. Manage third‑party delivery across major networks and first‑party ordering from a single hub. Lula Operators provide AI‑assisted operations that watch every store, fix menu blockers, reopen offline locations, and submit disputes with the right evidence. You get fewer cancellations, higher GMV, and airtight compliance during late‑night peaks. Our support team responds at all times of day with clear SLAs and named escalation paths. If you want a partner that keeps you open and growing without adding headcount, start with Lula.
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