Many retail­ers offer rewards for their mobile cus­tomers as incen­tives to engage with the brand. But one such reward that just got a shot in the arm from a major U.S. chain doesn’t come with points or free­bies. Instead, it spares cus­tomers the agony of wait­ing in line for their orders. And experts say this con­ve­nience fac­tor is sim­ply a nat­ur­al evo­lu­tion of the mobile space as con­sumers grow more and more com­fort­able with mobile com­merce.

A recent announce­ment from cof­fee behe­moth Star­bucks Cof­fee Com­pa­ny could be a sig­nal that the con­ve­nience evo­lu­tion is offi­cial­ly upon us.

To wit: Star­bucks has shared a num­ber of cus­tomer ini­tia­tives it says will “fur­ther trans­form and ele­vate the Star­bucks Expe­ri­ence in Hol­i­day 2014 and beyond.”

That includes mobile order­ing, which will begin in Port­land with a U.S. roll­out to fol­low in 2015, as well as a “Star­bucks for Life” con­test and an inter­ac­tive Roast­ery and Tast­ing Room slat­ed to open in Seat­tle in Decem­ber.

Accord­ing to a press release, Star­bucks will intro­duce mobile order and pay in stores in the Port­land area before the end of the year. This will enable cus­tomers to place orders in advance and pick them up at a select­ed loca­tion.

“Mobile order­ing will deliv­er con­ve­nience, fre­quen­cy and speed of ser­vice and, over time, become the fastest and eas­i­est way for cus­tomers to order, pay and pick up their pur­chas­es,” Star­bucks says in the release.

A Star­bucks rep did not respond to a request for com­ment.

“[Last hol­i­day sea­son] cus­tomers researched, com­pared prices and then bought the brands and items they want­ed online, fre­quent­ly uti­liz­ing a mobile device to do so,” said Howard Schultz, pres­i­dent and chief exec­u­tive of Star­bucks, in a state­ment. “Since that time, we have been focused on rad­i­cal­ly redefin­ing the Star­bucks retail expe­ri­ence for our part­ners, cus­tomers and stores.  As a result of the work we’ve done, Star­bucks is poised for a great hol­i­day – our inno­va­tion pipeline is strong and we have a num­ber of ini­tia­tives ready to launch dur­ing the hol­i­day and into cal­en­dar 2015 and beyond.”

As a result, the com­pa­ny says it has “com­plete­ly reimag­ined the hol­i­day expe­ri­ence in stores for this shop­ping sea­son, stay­ing true to many time-hon­ored tra­di­tions, such as the arrival of the icon­ic red Star­bucks cups in stores, while adding inno­v­a­tive and rel­e­vant prod­ucts for hol­i­day shop­pers,” along­side the pump­kin spice lattes HBO star John Oliv­er hates so much.

Star­bucks is also launch­ing an oppor­tu­ni­ty for “a select num­ber of cus­tomers” to win “Star­bucks for Life” by using their Star­bucks Cards or pay­ing with their mobile devices.

In addi­tion to pay­ments, Star­bucks says its mobile cus­tomers can reap addi­tion­al ben­e­fits like access to spe­cial events, as well as sneak pre­views of new prod­ucts and pro­mo­tions and addi­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties to earn and redeem rewards across the Star­bucks fam­i­ly of brands.

Accord­ing to reports, 15 per­cent of Star­bucks’ Q3 rev­enue was from mobile trans­ac­tions, which equals about 6 mil­lion week­ly orders.

Star­bucks is cer­tain­ly not alone in try­ing to make mobile cus­tomers’ lives eas­i­er. Domino’s recent­ly added voice order­ing and a vir­tu­al Siri-like assis­tant to its app.

In 2012, Tex Mex chain Moe’s South­west Grill rolled out a mobile and online order­ing prod­uct to give cus­tomers “a more effi­cient and user-friend­ly way to pre-order and pre-pay for their meal,” a release says. Per Google Play, the Moe’s app has between 100,000 and 500,000 installs. Bur­ri­to chain Chipo­tle, too, has an order­ing app.

Smooth­ie chain Jam­ba Juice teamed up with Pay­Pal to test an order-ahead fea­ture for iPhone users in  2013.

And reports say both Taco Bell and McDonald’s are test­ing their own order-ahead apps, although a McDonald’s rep did not respond to a request for com­ment either.

In addi­tion, cof­fee and baked goods brand Dunkin’ Donuts recent­ly cel­e­brat­ed the two-year anniver­sary of its app and eight mil­lion down­loads with an “Appiver­sary” Twit­ter sweep­stakes that reward­ed fans with mGifts.

Fur­ther, Scott Hudler, vice pres­i­dent of glob­al con­sumer engage­ment for Dunkin’ Brands told Momen­tol­ogy, “We are plan­ning to test mobile order­ing in the fourth quar­ter and we antic­i­pate adding the order­ing fea­ture to our exist­ing mobile app in 2015. With the growth of mobile and all of the great things it can do today that we could­n’t do two years ago, mobile order­ing is the log­i­cal next step. For the con­sumer, there is a huge ben­e­fit to skip the line, and improve order accu­ra­cy and speed.”

Senior dig­i­tal strat­e­gy advi­sor Augus­tine Fou says it is all about effi­cien­cy for the cus­tomer.

“Even deliv­ery is not opti­mal since you don’t know exact­ly when the guy will show up and some­times it may come dam­aged, etc.,” he says. “[But with order-ahead apps, the] con­sumer is in con­trol and they can walk over to get it, espe­cial­ly if the app tells them it is ready for pick up.”

What’s more, Star­bucks can do this at scale, which will give the brand a sense of demand and it could per­haps lat­er imple­ment surge pric­ing like Uber or offer cus­tomers the option to pay more for faster deliv­ery or, con­verse­ly, fol­low Amazon’s lead and give cus­tomers an option to choose slow­er deliv­ery speeds for low­er costs and/or just to save them­selves logis­tic stress, he says.

Inter­net mar­ket­ing con­sul­tant Paul Chaney agrees.

“Any­thing that will ease the pain of stand­ing in line, espe­cial­ly the long lines often expe­ri­enced at Star­bucks, is worth try­ing.”

Chaney says mobile order-ahead is just anoth­er phase of the con­ve­nience evo­lu­tion fos­tered by the growth of mobile and the advent of pay­ment apps such as Apple Pay.

“Any tech­nol­o­gy that can make our lives sim­pler and eas­i­er to man­age will doubt­less have its day in the sun,” Chaney says.

“For mobile, that day has come.” For her part, Tes­sa Wegert, com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor at inter­ac­tive mar­ket­ing firm Enlight­en, says it comes down to cus­tomer behav­ior and the degree to which mobile pay­ment is already ingrained in con­sumers’ lives.

“These types of ser­vices res­onate with heavy mobile users,” she says. “That bodes well for brands like Star­bucks that are going all-in on tech­nol­o­gy and dig­i­tal inno­va­tion.”

What do you think is the best reward for mobile cus­tomers?