7-Eleven is bringing cashier-less payments to its stores

Since Amazon opened its first cashier-less Amazon Go store in late 2016, other retailers have been forced to grapple with how they’ll compete with the convenience store of the future.

Amazon has since opened several additional Amazon Go locations, including in Seattle and San Francisco, and last week, Sam’s Club said it would open a “Sam’s Club Now” store in Dallas, Texas. Now, one of the oldest international chains is announcing a similar new system of cashier-less payments.

7-Eleven is piloting a new mobile check-out process called Scan & Pay. 7-Eleven shoppers can track their items by scanning a product’s QR code with their phone and pay using the 7-Eleven rewards mobile app. The company, which operates more than 65,000 stores in 17 countries, is currently piloting Scan & Pay in 14 Dallas stores. It plans to expand the service to additional cities in 2019.

Customers can pay using Apple Pay, Google Pay or a traditional debit or credit card. The only products banned from cashier-less check-out are hot foods, lottery tickets, alcohol and tobacco.

“For us, it was important to figure out how to continue to drive convenience in the digital age,” said Gurmeet Singh, 7-Eleven’s chief digital officer and chief information officer. “We are ready to adapt to the changing consumer patterns and changing demands of the consumer.”

Headquartered in Dallas, 7-Eleven says 50 percent of the U.S. population lives within one mile of one of its stores.

Like other big brick-and-mortar retailers, it’s doing its best to keep up with tech’s big advancements. Earlier this year, the company partnered with the ‘Deadpool’ series to present an augmented reality experience in its stores, among other experiments.