Dive Brief:
- Alimentation Couche-Tard, parent company of Circle K, and Lula Commerce, have partnered to provide e-commerce capabilities for more than 800 franchised Circle K stores in the U.S., the companies announced on Tuesday.
- Just under 200 Circle K locations have already gained the ability to integrate the e-commerce toolkit, with the full rollout anticipated to be complete in the first quarter of 2025, Lula co-founder and CEO Adit Gupta said in an email to sister publication C-Store Dive.
- Lula also announced the appointment of Justin Jackson as its new president and chief revenue officer.
Dive Insight:
Circle K joins a growing list of convenience retailers that use Lula’s e-commerce services, such as Jacksons Food Stores, Clipper and Atlantis Management Group.
With labor troubles continuing to plague the c-store industry, putting pressure on many convenience retailers, more retailers are looking to tools and services that automate some omnichannel services to help save time and let employees focus on customer-facing tasks.
As Lula continues to expand throughout the c-store industry, it has named a top executive with notable experience at e-commerce companies. Jackson’s experience includes nearly three years as the head of Uber Eats and more than six years in various sales roles with Amazon, according to his LinkedIn bio. He became Lula’s president in mid-August after several months of working with the company as an advisor, Gupta said in an email.
In addition to creating a more unified digital experience, Lula commerce’s “all-in-one solution” uses AI to handle tasks that would normally be managed by employees in areas like marketing, accounting and category management.
“We’ve come a long way from our early days years ago of simplifying aggregation to now contributing our expertise as an extension of our customers’ digital teams,” said Gupta in the announcement.
Laval, Quebec-based Couche-Tard operates more than 7,100 c-stores in the U.S. and 16,700 locations globally.
Clarification: This story was updated to specify that stores have access to Lula’s e-commerce tools but are not obligated to integrate them.
