Why Some Consumers Pay at the Pump With a Smartphone

BOSTON -- Consumers who use apps to pay for gas are a powerful group of convenience-store customers with room to grow, according to the recent Paying at the Pump Report from GasBuddy and online news source Pymnts.com.

While 49.4% of consumers use mobile apps for gas-related needs, only 4.5% of total consumers use these apps to actually pay for gas, indicating that more consumers could be convinced to switch to paying for gas with their mobile device. However, growing this segment will require customer education. The study says that nearly half of surveyed consumers don’t use apps for gas purchases, and about the same amount are not even aware that such apps are available.

Promoting more store traffic is not the only behavior outlined in the Paying at the Pump Report. Click through for more on gas-app users and how c-store operators can capitalize on this trend …

Convenience is the most important factor to consumers considering whether to use a mobile app to pay for gas, as 73% of users who pay for gas with an app said a convenient in-app shopping experience would increase the chance that they would visit the store again in the future. Convenience isn’t the only factor, though. A full 70% are also motivated by loyalty credits and rewards, and 61% are motivated by price discounts, according to the study.

Twenty-two percent of consumers who pay for gas with apps “always” make additional purchases in the c-store, but only 11% of non-app users “always” buy store items, according to the study. It also asserts that gas-app users are more likely to shop in-store if the app includes additional payment options. “Of customers who use mobile apps to pay for gas, 73% say they are likely to shop at the facility’s convenience store, and 82% want a mobile-app experience that will let them pay for c-store items,” the study said.

Furthermore, the study found that 73% of mobile-app users who use apps to pay for gas said they are likely to make additional store purchases.

The study claims that consumers who purchase gas with apps account for about $2.8 billion in annual c-store sales revenue.

The study also said that consumers who use apps to pay for gas are more likely to purchase gas weekly or even daily. In fact, 68% of adults who buy gas with mobile apps do so at least once per week. Even so, this statistic raises the chicken-or-egg question. Which causes which? Most of these consumers likely pay with mobile apps because they buy so much gas, not the other way around.

The study named Royal Dutch Shell’s Fuel Rewards program as the most widely used gas app. While 29% of app users employ Fuel Rewards, 25% use Google Pay or Apple Pay, 20% use PayPal and 15% use Samsung Pay.