America’s Drive-Through Future

This comes from personal experience, as my partners and I had 28 QSR Restaurants (Wendy’s and Sister’s). The drive through is a terrific application — even in the 70’s/early 80’s we were doing 40%+ off the drive-through.

However, executing this concept correctly, to meet the consumers’ needs and expectations, touches on a great number of issues. It starts with proper real estate. It flows through to having product availability in a convenient manner for associates, who can quickly address the consumers’ reasons for being at the ‘window’ in the first place. (We drove for 30 second service, and it was a challenge in various shifts.) Retailers HAVE TO TRAIN THEIR STAFF HOW TO SERVICE ON THIS LINE. Having added equipment to simplify communication is important. Limited items/weight going out the window has to play a role — you don’t want to have spillage and incorrect orders.

This is a truly great concept for the right retailers. It is NOT for everybody. Balance it with ‘sticking to the knitting,’ and see if sales/service are enhanced inside, before retrofitting real estate, stores, personnel, training, etc.

Drive-through can be useful for simple orders that consumers book online. More complex orders would tie up too much staff time to fill. Retailers may test drive-through to see if it catches on, but there are so many other areas of the retail experience that could be improved before devoting time and resources to a tiny niche of the business.

The drive through concept has been around a long time. As has been pointed out in the article by Will Ander, it works best for small, not complex orders. Having just worked with a c-store client who was considering adding a drive through window, the issues mount up fairly quickly. What items do you want to sell (age restricted items – beer, cigarettes, etc. – add another level of complexity)? Does this require adding dual equipment (fountain machines, coffee pots, etc.) etc., etc.? There have been chains that have had success with very limited product selection such as Swiss Farm Stores in PA.

Ironically, true drive throughs have been a part of the c-store industry for some time. In these instances, the customer actually drives through the store and runners get the items, bag them and collect the cash. Think of a car wash with groceries. Generally, they are small or independents and not chain operators.

Any business model that is designed to save consumers time is likely to succeed provided that the experience meets expectations. The challenge with any drive-through operation (as we all know if we’ve ever sat in a slow drive-through pharmacy line) is ensuring the time the customer spends waiting is less than the time it would take them in-store to purchase the same items. With complex orders, this becomes more challenging. Logistics of order processing and the ability to forecast traffic flow become critical to success.

Retailers exploring this option might learn something from Disney and think about how to manage time waiting in line as part of the shopping experience. By transforming wait time, retailers can effectively eliminate this from the shopper’s perceived time to complete the transaction and increase drive-through satisfaction.

Ultimately, there will be shoppers who value the in-store experience and others who simply want the fastest route to purchase regardless of the experience.

I don’t get it. I would think grocers would be the last merchants in line to promote drive-throughs. Isn’t the point of displays, tastings, and the end cap strategy to get people to buy things they didn’t have on their list? Aren’t the near-register items (mags, gum, candy, snacks, etc.) there to get customers to add on to their order while standing in line? Aren’t seasonal items there expressly so people will buy “the cute”?

Drive-thru’s have proven to be a benefit to Walgreens customers resulting in them being a standard part of the Walgreens prototype. As Walgreens expands into prepared foods, the drive-thru will be a great enabler.

Walmart has included a drive-thru as part of their new store prototype (Bloomington, MN). They have signing indicating that it is for Pharmacy and Shop Online/Pick Up at Store.

There is a dramatic increase in the percentage of shoppers who shop online and pick up in store (Best Buy recently reported that 40% of its customers do so currently – an increase over last year).

With Walgreens and Walmart deploying drive-thrus and customer trends continuing in a direction where drive-thrus are increasingly relevant and convenient, one might expect that retail drive-thrus will continue to grow.

As some have noted, this concept has been around for a long time (longer in fact than many of them probably realize, as one can find pictures of a Model T or Maxwell or some such 1920’s car sitting in drive-thru grocery during that era) so why should we expect it to suddenly blossom? I don’t find the cliches that “the rules have changed” or “people are just SO rushed these days” very convincing. Get outta yer car folks. The (small) walk will do all of us good!!

I don’t think we’ll see drive-thru’s become a big part of mainstream retail anytime in the near future, for a host of reasons. But, one thing that has gone unmentioned is that this goes completely against the recent push to get people in the U.S. up off their couches and moving again. One reads every so often that people are supposed to take the furthest away parking spot and actually walk a ways to the store that they are visiting but I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen.

What’s preventing drive-thru’s at retail today? The barriers are: efficiency, execution, selection, demographics, site limitations and more. The solutions aren’t so simple. In the end, as mentioned, they won’t be for everyone. Even if they are for some, they may not be an offering at every site.

Will food retailers be able to deliver an experience in a drive-thru? Maybe, but not anything close to the possibilities of entering the store. Further, the fresh areas (Meat, Produce, Bakery, Deli, Seafood, etc.) still remain ‘selection’ offerings where the consumer is much more satisfied selecting their own product. Reaching the levels of satisfaction to achieve success in these areas will always be a challenge. Will the consumer driven by the perception of convenience of a drive-thru be marginally satisfied enough with the four apples (steak, pork chops, muffins, or you name the items) a runner picks? Or, will they always maintain some level of disappointment to the extent that the factor of convenience no longer leverages their disappointment? And is it all isn’t executed at the speed of the best McDonald’s you’ve ever visited?

The reality is that the drive-thru expectation is set. Can food retailers meet it at those speeds and expectations? Maybe. Just as McDonald’s fails in their goals for service levels at many locations, food retailers might not have the luxury of getting it right only once and a while.

I used to work at a chain of grocery stores that had call-ahead grocery shopping and drive up, pick up. It was revolutionary at the time, but it went by the wayside.

Hi all. Interesting piece! Whilst you are specifically discussing America, as I always try to keep ahead of the game, I am interested to learn that Walmart is planning to trial this concept. I would agree that the whole point of shoppers coming into the store would be with clever marketing and POS to entice the customer to buy more.

Much will depend on the anticipated level of service and range of products to the customer to be able to make it operationally and financially viable. I totally get the idea of pick-up pre on-line orders, however such a concept in the UK may not appeal to the customer, who is quite happy to either purchase on-line and have groceries delivered or prefers to head into the store themselves to be selective and ‘eye’ before they ‘buy’!

Drive-thrus are prominent in the UK from a Fast Food perspective and in fact Starbucks is now rolling out drive-thru developments in the UK with a licensee who is a national PFS operator (Eurogarages).

As with any market, it very much depends on cultures/lifestyles as to whether concepts would potentially be welcomed and successful. When I was originally working on the drive-thru concept for Starbucks last year, it was quite prominent how both myself and a colleague from the UK and other US internal colleagues were clearly thinking with our different culture/lifestyle hats on in terms of design elements and what would and wouldn’t work in the UK market in particular. Interestingly enough some points were echoed by way of the results of a market research exercise instructed to understand the customer and their habits vs. the facility type.

Drive-thru use and sales will build quickly as customers get used to the concept and convenience – both of which have to be well thought out in terms of design and location.

I think the drive-through will re-invent the c-store category.

Consider the young mom driving with children in car seats. She hasn’t frequented c-stores because of the hassle of getting the kids in and out of car seats to enter the store. But she will frequent c-stores now because of the drive-through feature. Chute Gerdeman recently completed the redesign of the Swiss Farms chain. It’s really enhanced the CONVENIENCE aspect of this retail category.