NACS exists to advance convenience and fuel retailing. That could mean advocating for the industry on Capitol Hill, providing data-driven insights or hosting the global convenience community at the NACS Show. And often it means thinking ahead—peering around corners and preparing for what’s next in convenience.

“For more than 60 years, NACS hasn’t just studied and anticipated change, it’s helped retailers lead it. It’s our role to ensure c-stores are well-positioned for the future and our industry remains competitive,” said Stephanie Sikorski, vice president of strategic initiatives at NACS and CEO of TruAge.

“Recently, we’ve focused on exploring strategic initiatives that would protect our stores from risk while also maximizing opportunities to grow businesses and evolve digitally,” she said. “Over the last six years, we’ve created a digital product suite. Its four current solutions were purpose-built for the industry, by the industry by NACS and Conexxus. Each solution is designed to address key industry challenges. And whether they’re used alone or together, they’re designed to reduce risk while increasing traffic, digital presence and revenue.”

The four products are: 

• TruAge®: a free, privacy-first digital age-verification tool that allows consumers to securely show proof of age when purchasing age-restricted products. TruAge unlocks a better experience at checkout, reducing risk for retailers and making the carding process faster and easier.

• THRIVR^™: an integrated social media, reputation and listings-management solution designed specifically for c-stores. THRIVR helps retailers show up in local searches, increase brand visibility, build bigger baskets and gain new customers.

• PROSPR^™: a digital coupon and promotion platform that simplifies offer distribution and redemption. PROSPR ensures a smoother experience at checkout while eliminating fraud and inefficiencies. 

• Charging Analytics Program (CAP): a database that provides aggregated EV market and charging deployment data across the U.S. and Canada, plus insights on when, where and how EV chargers are being used. CAP helps retailers determine ROI for installing and operating electric vehicle charging stations. 

“Any of these solutions can be used individually, but there is also a lot of power in using them together,” said Sikorski. 

“Let’s use THRIVR as an example. It helps retailers better manage their social media, online presence and reputation in one platform without having to manually go into dozens of different social accounts and web listings. A retailer can send out a digital promotion or coupon through that same platform, which now means they are engaging with our latest solution, PROSPR. Maybe that customer found the store through THRIVR, came in because of the digital coupon that was made possible by PROSPR, and then also used a single scan with TruAge to get age-verified for a purchase. All of this might have happened because the customer was looking for a place to charge their EV—which brings in CAP,” she explained. 

“These solutions are intended to help retailers drive impact where it matters to them today and tomorrow. Every company and brand is different, so how they use one tool, a combination of tools or all four tools will look different.”

Why were these initiatives chosen for NACS to develop? 

Every single one of these products is a future-forward solution built for the moment we’re in and the future we’re heading toward. NACS, Conexxus, retail leaders and the supplier community worked together. We determined what problem we are trying to solve for and how we can prepare for future problems that we can foresee down the road. 

From a technology perspective, we didn’t want to get caught flat-footed or left behind as an industry. TruAge is a great example of this because you can use it today by scanning a traditional driver’s license, but we’re also readying the industry for mobile driver’s licenses and a more prominent digital wallet ecosystem in the future. 

For me personally, these initiatives are about doing something for the greater good and helping to advance the industry and what it offers. It’s also about shifting us to being more proactive versus reactive—creating smart, responsible solutions that are both accessible and scalable. I wake up every day viewing my job as an opportunity to accelerate innovative solutions to significant issues and opportunities in our industry. 

At NACS, we started to shift our own thinking and explore our role with a new lens. It was a paradigm shift—as the largest global trade association for convenience and fuel retailing, what if NACS could help the industry start to think of itself as a 152,000-store chain (the total number of convenience stores in the United States). Imagine the voice and influence that size company would have. Imagine the resources it would have, its ability to shape and drive the future. But it’s not just about influence, it’s about impact; especially given our role in communities across the U.S. and around the globe. The power of that shift in thinking helps lift everyone, whether you have one store or 1,000 stores, and supports the whole industry to do well, as responsible business owners and manufacturers. 

TruAge is a great example of this forward-thinking solution mindset. Tell us more about it. 

TruAge is a perfect example of not just anticipating what a trend might be, but in a way, creating it.

Convenience stores are the single-largest channel for age-restricted product sales. Protecting this core part of our baseline business is essential.

When we set out to develop TruAge, we had to go in eyes wide open about both the risks and the opportunities facing our industry. On the risk side, there was concern that youth use of products like vapes was on the rise, regulators were tightening product restrictions and the social license for convenience stores to sell age-restricted products was at stake. We also knew current systems weren’t built for a digital-first future and that costly mandatory age-verification regulation was looming. 

At the same time, we saw tremendous opportunity. By creating a responsible, not-for-profit, industry-led solution, we could help future-proof the channel for emerging products like cannabis, intoxicating hemp beverages and OTC pharmaceuticals, lead in terms of the adoption of mobile driver’s licenses and digital wallets, deliver a frictionless consumer experience without sacrificing privacy and protect retailers from a new swipe fee-type charge on age verification. NACS has been battling swipe fees for decades, and we didn’t want age verification to become a similar situation. 

The convenience industry is traditionally really good at playing defense. But TruAge was an opportunity to play offense. What would it look like if we leaned into combating the misinformed narratives and headlines and took the initiative to show exactly what it looks like to sell legal, age-restricted products responsibly—with the data to back it up. 

We are not only doing the right thing by helping prevent youth access to age-restricted products by carding responsibly, but the beauty of TruAge is that it helps balance safety and speed. TruAge not only verifies age, but it also detects fake IDs and checks volume limits, cutting checkout time and reducing the retailer’s risk so front-line team members can get back to what our core focus should be, and that’s our customers. 

Speaking of the customer, you did a lot of consumer research to develop TruAge. What did you learn about what they’re looking for, and how will these tools help retailers better serve the customer? 

A product is only as good as the consumers’ willingness to adopt it, so we really did our due diligence before launching TruAge. We found three big things—consumers wanted ubiquity, privacy and speed of transactions. 

There is a big move from consumers towards everything being digital, including their wallets. Think about it: It probably takes 10 minutes to realize you lost your phone, but 24 hours to realize you lost your ID. Everything is becoming more mobile-focused. TruAge can accept traditional driver’s licenses today but it’s also built—and ready— to be part of a future frictionless checkout experience. 

Consumers also want to be age verified privately. When you scan an ID, it contains more than 33 pieces of information, including name, address and other information a customer might not want to share and that isn’t necessary for age verification. TruAge only uses four data points: date of birth, expiration date, state of issuance and license number. This was a big factor for women in particular, but really for anyone who feels uncomfortable giving over personally identifiable information to make a purchase. A cashier needs to know you are of legal age to buy a product—not your identity or where you live. 

Why should retailers adopt TruAge now? 

As of now, we have the ability to activate two-thirds of the industry on existing point of sale platforms, which is really as easy as flipping a switch for them. We have partnered with Verifone, Invenco by GVR, Clover and more, so there’s no incremental coding, hardware or extra training—we built it to flow the exact same way they’re used to. TruAge is 100% free for all convenience retailers. This means you never pay per-scan, per-store or per-transaction costs. We like to say it’s just more protection on both sides of the counter.  

If we can develop a product that works in convenience, then it can pretty much work anywhere considering the sheer number of pressure tests we have daily in our channel alone. The product has been vetted by the Department of Homeland Security and the technology was recently named the de facto global standard for digital age verification by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). That’s something the industry should be proud of—this incredible solution can work for so many businesses and industries around the globe, and it came out of convenience. 

You’ve been working on the NACS digital ecosystem for a while and became the CEO of TruAge in 2024. What’s been a proud moment for you since you took on that role? 

The first time we had TruAge live in a store, which happened in 2022, it was absolutely not perfect. We learned a lot during the process of that first concept test. It’s a huge kudos to our industry for their willingness to test and learn and refine the product with us. 

Right after NACS Show last year, we were given the opportunity to showcase TruAge as the official age-verification system at a large Formula One-related event in Austin—with only one week’s notice. At the event, we had a line of about 600 people wrapped around the block to get in, and two police officers standing behind our team to ensure we were age verifying properly. And it went flawlessly. There were no glitches. Everything went off without a hitch. We caught some expired IDs, and the police officers were like, ‘This product is so cool.’ 

At one point, the event management team actually asked us to slow down. It was a really proud moment. We spend so much time working heads down, but it’s important to pause and relish those types of moments where we really see what we have been able to accomplish. 

How do you hope these tools evolve in the future? What’s next?

I always come back to what convenience really means. In everything that we do, we should be asking ourselves: Are we building things and serving our customers in the way that they want? Is our solution convenient? By that I mean, is it easy? That’s the real test, right? And how do we continue to cut out things that are points of frustration for our guests? Bonus points if it allows us time to get back to our roots as community stores. 

I want to see us remove as much friction as we can at the first mile and the last mile with the tools that we’re creating. Change can be scary, but we have the opportunity as an industry to embrace smarter ways to deliver on convenience. To make it easier … which will help us focus on what matters most: our employees, our customers and the communities we serve 24/7/365.