Dive Brief:

• Alimentation Couche-Tard will launch a virtual Circle K convenience store next winter as part of a management course at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), a company spokesperson said in an email.
• The virtual store will support a shopping simulation aimed at helping students learn category management principles like pricing, promotion, product and placement, according to an announcement from the university in May.
• This marks the second project Couche-Tard has done with a Canadian university in recent years. The first — its retail innovation lab store at McGill University in Montreal — opened in January 2021 as a testing ground for new technologies.

Dive Insight:

Couche-Tard wanted the virtual store to be as realistic as possible during its development, and based its layout on the actual format of a Circle K at Danforth and Pape Avenues in Toronto, the spokesperson said. Couche-Tard provided TMU with this store’s layouts, planograms, promotional signage, fixtures, branding and product categories to get the details right in the digital replica.

Inside the virtual store, students will see national brands such as Red Bull and Coca-Cola on shelves, as well as Circle K’s private label brand and a variety of snacks, beverages and candy.

“Everything was designed to look as close as possible to what consumers see in a Circle K store,” the spokesperson said.

The simulation lets students view the store, its layout and its products, as well as answer questions via on-screen prompts and complete various tasks, such as grabbing items off the shelves and buying them via cashierless checkout.

Couche-Tard’s spokesperson did not respond by press time for details on the internal group that worked on this project. In March, the retailer shuttered its global innovation team, which spearheaded similar technology-driven initiatives like the retailer’s Smart Checkout program and the McGill innovation lab.

According to TMU’s announcement, Leslie Gordon, director of proprietary brands at Circle K, helped create the virtual store.

The virtual store is being funded by nonprofit eCampus Ontario, which supports the development of online learning through new tools, courses and programs. The funding application was submitted in January 2022 and approved that April, Couche-Tard’s spokesperson said. The entire project took 10 months to complete, they noted.

Once live, the store will not only debut in TMU’s winter 2024 category management course, but will be available to all instructors at Ontario’s publicly funded colleges and universities through eCampus Ontario’s online portal, according to the announcement.

Laval, Quebec-based Couche-Tard operates more than 14,300 c-stores in 24 countries, including nearly 7,000 in the U.S.