7-Eleven Guangdong, South China

Company overview

7-Eleven South China opened its new chapter of Chinese market expansion in 1992. Starting with five stores in Shenzhen, now we have expanded our business to 1,900 stores among 13 cities in the Guangdong Province.

Under fierce competition within the convenience store market, the own-brand products and ready-to-eat (RTE) items have become a distinctive strength of 7-Eleven South China. Also, leveraging a mature network of logistics warehouses, over 3,000 product varieties have been stored, establishing a solid foundation for the future advancement of a more intelligent and rapid delivery system. Besides, 7-Eleven South China ‘s consumer-centric approach and commitment of service excellence have consistently earned a favorable reputation among local consumers. Furthermore, 7-Eleven South China are dedicated to enhancing service quality and expanding product diversity to better meet consumer demand.

Nowadays, 7-Eleven South China serves around 700,000 customers daily, and nearly one thirds of them purchase RTE products. Given that fresh food products constitute the core competitive advantage, aggregated QR code has been further introduced to enhance consumer experience, providing customers with a more convenient and efficient checkout process.

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Set the Scene

Before the aggregated QR code, customers can only order by menu and self-checkout is not available for non-barcode RTE items. To further enhance customer experience and offer more diverse payment options, 7-Eleven South China has innovatively introduced the aggregated QR code, which represents the first and unique innovative breakthrough within the convenience store retail sector.

By utilizing the aggregated QR code, customers can directly point out the ready-to-eat products they wish to order to staff at the food truck. Following the customer’s order placement, an automated receipt bearing the aggregated QR code is printed. Scanning the QR code at the cashier allows customers to clearly view all ordered items, bypassing inventory limitations and avoiding repeated product verification for enhanced convenience and customer experience.

Moreover, the aggregated code is applicable across all stores that offer RTE freshly prepared products. As a highly adaptable solution, it represents a sustainable and scalable digital initiative. Not only providing more payment methods（e.g. scan & go, palm pay etc.）to the consumers, but also opening up further possibilities for 7-Eleven South China’s digital development.

Innovation Overview

In the past, customers required staff assistance throughout the entire process of purchasing freshly cooked RTE products in-store. Limitations on self-checkout and the occurrence of unnecessary repetitive actions decreased customer satisfaction. To be specific, customers had to first inform staff at the cashier of their selected items. After placing an order, staff would verify actual stocks; if an item was out of stock, customers needed to reorder alternative products, making the entire purchasing process cumbersome.

To further optimize the purchasing journey, 7-Eleven South China aims to alter the customers’ in-store movement path. By implementing aggregated QR code, consumers can directly order from the food truck’s displayed products, eliminating the risk of ordering out-of-stock items. Additionally, viewing actual RTE products allows customers to select preferred items more easily, enabling accurate ordering without verbal confirmation of product names. These enhancements significantly improve the ordering process and greatly elevate customer experience.

For shop operations, customers utilise the aggregated QR code to self-checkout ready-to-eat (RTE) products bearing no barcodes, effectively reducing staff service time. This allows staff to focus on cooking RTE items within the food truck without returning to the cashier, thereby enhancing food hygiene standards for customers. It also improves staff efficiency for serving each customer, contributing to reduction in labour costs.

Challenge & Opportunity

The convenience store market faces severe product homogenization, with threats from new entrants and expansion by existing competitors, resulting in a highly competitive environment. In this landscape, customer experience and store service quality become decisive factors for standing out and establishing unique brand value. Before the introduction of aggregated QR code, purchasing freshly prepared foods required full reliance on communication with store staff, resulting in inadequate convenience and lacking in intelligent service. Therefore, enabling customers to check out automatically for non-barcoded RTE products has become a new strategic opportunity.

To differentiate from rivals and deliver a positive service experience, 7-Eleven South China reviewed its existing resources and seek to integrate technological innovation. A key pain point has been identified that our customers must order at the cashier before confirming actual inventory in the food truck. Real-time inventory may not meet customer order needs, and reordering due to item shortages also risks degrading the consumer shopping experience. Additionally, when customers wish to purchase fresh food together with other items, they must check out separately. Also, verbally confirming orders for freshly prepared RTE (Ready-to-Eat) items may raise concerns about order accuracy. Fortunately, stores of  7-Eleven South China already featured digital self-checkout screens, and the partnership with Dmall makes developing an innovative ordering system achievable.

QR Codes are now widely adopted in China, with customers demonstrating high proficiency in their use. So 7-Eleven South China proposed leveraging existing self-checkout kiosks to collaborate with Dmall in developing a dedicated QR code for RTE fresh food checkout. This allows customers to directly point at existing products in front of the food truck and place orders. Following the order, an aggregated QR code is provided to the customer. By scanning the code at the kiosk, customers can view all ordered items displayed on the screen for verification. Furthermore, they can continue scanning barcodes of other products to complete a single checkout transaction, significantly streamlining the payment process.

So far, 7-Eleven South China remains the only brand in the marketplace offering this convenient RTE ordering system, showcasing the commitment to customer satisfaction.

Partnerships & Ecosystem Collaboration

7-Eleven South China partnered with Dmall to launch a self-checkout aggregation code, optimizing the checkout process for fresh food products while jointly enhancing in-store checkout efficiency and customer experience. When ordering freshly prepared RTE items, customers can scan the dedicated aggregated QR code provided by staff at the kiosk to complete payment. All purchased items will display instantly on the kiosk screen, making the process smoother and more convenient.

As a technology service provider, Dmall supported the design of the aggregated QR code through its IT solutions. In response to 7-Eleven South China’s request for a digital upgrade to the checkout process, Dmall established an efficient and stable data interface between the ordering system and the POS system, which enabling customers to seamlessly complete self-checkout with the aggregated QR code.

Centering on business scenarios, 7-Eleven South China actively collaborated with Dmall to design and build interfaces, forming a tightly coordinated solution. The launch of the aggregated QR Code stands as evidence of deep and effective collaboration throughout the project. It also reflected 7-Eleven South China ‘s determination as the project leader to advance the intelligence and convenience of retail alongside technology partners under the digital era.

Setup & Early Experiments

The aggregated QR code technology started by integrating two functions. As mentioned in the previous answer, the aggregation code function originates from aggregating scattered orders for products and integrating them into a single aggregated QR code for customers to view relevant information. To achieve this functionality, analytics and connected systems were the initial features used in this project.

7-Eleven South China possesses order analytics technology, capable of generating order entries specific to individual products by analysing internal system data. This technology is used in its manual checkout machines. 7-Eleven South China’s partner, Dmall, possesses a connected system capable of linking multiple individual order data entries and then aggregating them into a single aggregated data.

7-Eleven South China saw the potential in combining its own technology with Dmall’s. 7-Eleven South China lacked connected system capabilities, while Dmall, while possessing connected system capabilities, lacked a central entity for linking them. Therefore, after finalizing the cooperation, the two companies completed the first integration on 7-Eleven South China’s internal test machines. The order data analysed by 7-Eleven South China was integrated using Dmall’s connected system capabilities, and the first aggregation code was printed out by the machine. After scanning the aggregated QR code using an internal testing machine and seeing accurate information on multiple products appear on the screen, the two companies realized that their initial pilot project had been successfully completed.

Digital & Data Enablement

In 7-Eleven South China’s innovative “aggregated QR code” system, digitization and data are key attributes, playing a central role in the following aspects:

Predictive Inventory:  Customers simply point to the corresponding (RTE) product on the food cart, and the staff can then place the order on a screen on the cart and generate a corresponding aggregated QR code for the customer, after customer make the payment, the corresponding RTE sales record is transmitted to 7-Eleven South China’s data platform via the aggregated QR code system. By downloading and analysing this data, 7-Eleven South China can accurately understand consumer behaviour preferences and order products accordingly to meet personalized needs at each store.

Frictionless Checkout: The aggregated QR code system is the core of 7-Eleven South China’s frictionless checkout process. Without this technology, customer frequency of use self-checkout machines was extremely low. After the full implementation of aggregated QR codes, self-checkout machine use frequency increased by over 40%. Previously, RTE products could only be paid for manually; now, customers can easily pay using aggregated QR code receipts at self-checkout machines. The RTE product data integrated into the aggregated QR codes optimizes the entire checkout process, improving overall store efficiency and saving time.

Scaling the Innovation

The growth of 7-Eleven South China, from initial testing to broader rollout, went through the following processes, taking a total of six months from June 2021 to December 2021.

1. Initial Testing (1 month)

• Internal System Testing aggregated QR code (14 days): Testing using 7-Eleven South China’s internal POS systems. Testing includes verifying system functionality and identifying potential bugs.
• Pilot Installation in Ten Stores (14 days): Hardware and software testing of the aggregated QR code functionality in only ten stores. This confirms operation in a production environment and assesses the feasibility of broader rollout.

2. Before Rollout (3 months)

• In-Store Materials production (1.5 month): This material includes table cards, banners, and signs to guide customers through how to use the aggerated QR code function and use the self-checkout machine.
• Retraining of Store Staff (1.5 months): 7-Eleven South China Store staff will be trained in batches to understand how to use aggregated QR code and how to guide customers to use it.

3. Broader Rollout (2 months)

• Store Promotion (1 month): Special promotional activities will be held in 7-Eleven South China’s stores to encourage consumers to use aggregated QR codes and develop their awareness and habit of using that function.

Batch Installation of aggregated QR Code system (1 month): 7-Eleven South China Stores will be scheduled to install aggregated QR code system in batches. The system will be ready for immediate use after upgrades.

Operational Transformation

Since the roll-out of aggregated QR code, the optimized RTE ordering process has significantly boosted in-store service efficiency. Moreover, displaying purchased RTE items on electronic screens allows consumers to independently verify order accuracy, reducing order error rates while enhancing transparency and further improving customer satisfaction. The introduction of the aggregated QR code also helped 7-Eleven South China capture more market share in own-brand RTE products within the convenience store sector.

In addition, the aggregated QR code helps reduce labor costs for stores. During peak periods like morning and lunch breaks, stores often experience a high volume of orders for RTE items. Alongside the naturally heavy customer traffic during these times, order processing speed becomes essential. The aggregated QR code accelerates staff response times for RTE orders while ensuring order accuracy. It has reshaped store workflows from fully manual checkout to self-service options with increased customer engagement, thereby boosting store service efficiency.

Setbacks & Pivots

During initial internal testing with Dmall, 7-Eleven South China did encounter some minor issues. Because the aggregated QR code system needed to connect to 7-Eleven South China’s internal product number information to establish a dedicated system, the encountered problems such as abnormal inventory display and system memory overload. However, these issues were quickly resolved through coordinated efforts

Impact & Results

Since introducing the aggregated QR code as a checkout convenience feature, 7-Eleven South China has achieved improvements across sales performance, store operations, and customer in-store experience.

Firstly, the newly launched aggregated QR code integrates seamlessly with 7-Eleven South China’s membership system. By logging into their accounts, customers can automatically redeem their collected digital vouchers, with membership points credited to their accounts at the same time, which effectively improving the in-store service experience for our consumers. Currently, the mini-program’s consumer satisfaction rating of  7-Eleven South China has risen to 4.8/5.0, and our brand enjoys a positive reputation among local audiences.

Secondly, following the implementation of aggregated QR codes, the service efficiency at stores has increased by nearly 35% and total in-store staff service hours have been reduced by over 1,000,000 hours, while still maintaining or even upgrading the service quality. Customers could consistently enjoy a favourable shopping experience at stores.

Finally, as the aggregated QR code is mainly applied to the checkout process for ready-to-eat products, the sales of such items increased by nearly 3% within 4 years. Apart from directly boosting sales of RTE products, the order volumes of self- checkout also increased by over 40% when non-barcoded RTE items could be scanned with other goods at the kiosks.

In summary, the aggregated QR code contributes to both business growth and customer experience enhancement. As a digital intelligence initiative, it will sustainably deliver convenience to our consumers in the future.

Scalability & Future Potential

Looking ahead, the aggregated QR code can be further integrated with membership systems to deliver personalized recommendations. After scanning the aggregated QR code at self-service checkouts, members could continue to log in to their accounts, redeem their coupons and earn reward points. By analyzing members’ purchase histories and fresh food preferences, the system will be able to suggest drinks that are most frequently paired with their selections following QR code scans, thereby precisely meeting customer demands.

Meanwhile, the backend data collected from the aggregated QR code could help the brands to systematically optimize inventory. When products are scanned via the aggregated QR code, accurate data will be transmitted back to the backend system. Stores can use the data to identify top-selling items and optimize restocking decisions, thereby reducing wastage of ready-to-eat products. It’s also important for fresh food development teams to focus on the most popular categories and flavors, in order to create more products tailored to consumer preferences.

With the roll-out of the aggregated QR Code, 7-Eleven South China has successfully showcased a digital convenience solution, providing a blueprint for digital innovation within the convenience store sector. The precise data generated by this aggregated QR Code helps drive the brand towards a more consumer-centric business model, potentially forging a stronger connection between consumers and the convenience store brand.