The Iowa Lottery has made plans to offer ticket sales ‘in-lanes’ at grocery stores as part of an effort to streamline operations following the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to Radio Iowa, lottery executives are aiming to make buying tickets easier to keep up with the ease of sports wagering or igaming.
Mary Neubauer, a spokesperson for the lottery, commented: “Just making everything as convenient as possible. In the retail setting, something that is an impediment to the process is called friction so you are trying to do everything that you can to remove friction from the process of selling your product.”
One idea for the implementation of the ‘in-lane’ buying process is using ‘hang tags’ in the aisle which customers can scan which would print out a ticket.
As a result, customers would not need to go to a separate area of the store to buy a lottery ticket.
This change could also help retailers, as they now have to dedicate employees to work the counter where tickets are sold.
Neubauer noted that the technological advancements of sports betting and igaming leave lotteries lagging behind, forcing the retail evolution.
She added: “In terms of making sure the Lottery is keeping up with technology advances — that’s definitely something we need to do in terms of in-lane sales — or investigating other ways we can just make the process of purchasing our products easier and more convenient for customers.
“It’s all part of a bigger conversation, but the actual decision about going online– that’s something for our state policymakers and state lawmakers to make. But there are many other things we can do in the meantime to make it as convenient as possible for customers, and that’s what we are trying to do right now. ”