Article

PCATS, 5 years later

C-store tech standard has big innovations on the horizon.

May 18, 2008 by James Bickers — Editor, Networld Alliance

In August 2003, executives from the convenience store industry and NACS filed articles of incorporation for PCATS, the Petroleum Convenience Alliance for Technology Standards. Led by John Hervey, former chief technology officer for NACS and a 40-year veteran of the petroleum retail industry, the goal of PCATS was to unify the countless bits of technology used in and around the typical c-store — a swirl of legacy devices, proprietary hardware and competing vendors — and make them all communicate with one another.

At least one of the PCATS initiatives, the integration of POS and back-office software, "is now ubiquitous," Hervey told a crowd at this year's NACStech show in Grapevine, Texas. That particular standard is now in its third revision, with thousands of implementations in the field; it is a logo program that guarantees hardware and software products will work together, regardless of vendor.

POS/back-office integration is just one of four major programs that PCATS is working on, and it's actively courting retailers to help shape the future of those standards.

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The Four Pillars of PCATS

In addition to POS/back-office integration, Hervey said there are three key projects PCATS is developing: retail financial transaction standards, device integration, and electronic B2B document exchange.

On the transaction side, Hervey said the organization has defined a U.S. standard for exchanging credit card information from the POS to the acquiring host. It is currently working on a suite of payment system product codes, which will enable the POS to tell the acquiring host exactly what was purchased.

That's going to be especially important in the coming months, he said, as government agencies require greater levels of clarity and granularity regarding purchases of biodiesel fuels.

Device integration takes the logo program in place for the POS/back-office and extends it to the entire store — so that all devices in the store, and all the way back to the remote home office, can communicate electronically. Currently, committees are working on extending this standard to work with auto-safes and electronic price signs.

The c-store industry, at a glance

Number of c-stores in the United States: 146,294

C-store industry sales in 2007: $577.4 billion

(Source: NACS)

Perhaps the greatest emphasis was placed on the electronic B2B document exchange standard, which touches three key portions of the c-store's menu: lottery, retail products and motor fuels. Built around an XML format, the EB2B standard aims to let stores handle invoicing, e-bills of lading, price change notifications and other paperwork electronically.

Electronic invoicing is a very big deal for c-stores, which traffic high volumes of small products from an ever-changing list of sources. Hervey said one retailer told him it has moved $2.5 million in invoicing per week to the electronic system, eliminating untold amounts of paperwork and human effort.

The next thing on the horizon for the PCATS EB2B standard, Hervey said, is a unification of loyalty messaging, which will enable participating customer loyalty programs to share data with one another.

"We're just about finished with it," he said. "We have a few issues to address, and you should be hearing about it soon."

The need for retailer involvement

A non-profit membership organization, PCATS currently has a roster of 170 members. Many of those members are c-store owners, but others are suppliers to the industry — and Hervey wants to see more retailers getting involved in the standards creation process.

"A lot of retailers will say, 'Oh, that's the tech stuff, I don't mess with that — let the suppliers handle it,'" he said. "But the suppliers are going to tell you, 'We need the retailer's input.' This isn't just about suppliers setting standards."

Two retailers that are active in PCATS addressed the crowd, and they came from very different business backgrounds. Donna Perkins represented E-Z Stop Food Marts, whose stores number in the dozens, and Alvin Fortson represented The Pantry Inc., whose stores number in the thousands. Both emphasized the need for more c-store owners to speak up and make sure the standards make real-world sense now, before they become canonized.

"I'm the one that uses the things they write, and if they don't ever ask me about the things they write, how will they ever be functional?" Perkins said.