Dive Brief:
- MFA Oil Company is launching third-party delivery across all of its 70-plus Break Time convenience stores in Missouri through a deal with e-commerce firm Lula Commerce, according to a Tuesday press release.
- Break Time’s full convenience offering, including its AnyTime Eats and Roasters Cafe programs, along with nicotine products, can now be ordered through DoorDash at select locations, with the rest of its stores expected to come online in May, according to the announcement.
- Lula Commerce will manage the program’s end-to-end digital operations, including menu setup, order management and inventory syncing.
Dive Insight:
With consumers increasingly expecting brands to offer an omnichannel presence, c-store retailers are linking up with technology partnerships that let them offer new features without putting too much additional burden on in-store workers.
The tools Break Time — which is a separate entity from Houston-based BrakeTime Corner Market— can access through this partnership let its back office technology automatically add new items or remove out-of-stock items from online menus and streamline fulfillment.
This should help Break Time streamline its full c-store lineup, including the AnyTime Eats offering, which features a variety of sandwiches, snack foods and chicken poppers, as well as nicotine products.
"We want to be able to serve our customers across every channel, and our customers are turning to digital, so we needed to do the same," said Brayde Rothe, category manager at Break Time.
