From corner stores to Frankenstores: Why the convenience industry is getting a massive makeover

Cameras at the Couche-Tard convenience store at McGill University in Montreal watch customers as they shop, marking where they go, what they look at, and how long it takes them to get in and get out. The store is part of a laboratory, where professors in business and computer engineering study the ways shoppers move, charting the natural flow of a convenience store the way a paddler would chart a set of rapids. The hope,...