While electric vehicle (EV) charging stations can bring convenience-store retailers’ profit, what’s benefitting the business more than the actual sale of energy is in-store purchase increases, said Om Shankar, general manager and vice president of global e-mobility at Konect, a Gilbarco Veeder-Root brand, during an education at the 2024 NACS Show in Las Vegas.
That growth in purchases happens because EV customers dwell at the location for an extended time, sometimes up to 30 minutes, while their car is charging. It’s likely they will go inside to make a purchase, use the restroom or take advantage of free Wi-Fi, Shankar said.
In order to get to that stage of more purchases from EV customers, a convenience store must meet the standards of customers so that they return.
How does a convenience store get those customers to return?
Strategic Design
“People are creatures of habit, and once they discover a well-lit, working EV charger… they start coming to it very often,” said Rushi Patel, manager of diversified energy at RaceTrac. “Once someone finds you, they’re willing to come back time and time again, often around the same time.”
One way that RaceTrac’s EV chargers appeal to customers is by utilizing the same setup as a traditional fuel pump, Rushi said.
“We have a canopy… so you have that same comfort that you have even with the dwell time of the EV charger being 20-30 minutes, we’re seeing customers really enjoy that, choose our chargers for that,” Patel said.
At Casey’s, fuel category manager Sarah Clark doesn’t want to negatively impact the existing liquid fuel customers. Because there’s not a lot of additional space in its parking lots, Clark considers that chargers aren’t making the traditional fueling experience worse.
Casey’s General Stores Inc. is No. 3 on CSP’s 2024 Top 202 ranking of convenience-store chains by store count. RaceTrac is No. 17.
Pricing
Drivers will pay more for a trusted location with amenities, Patel said.
“We have an entire c-store canopy, and I think we learned that drivers are willing to pay a slight premium for that premium experience, and that's helped us change a lot of our analytics,” he said.
Loyalty Integration
If connecting loyalty and personalization to digital signage at the pump increases in-store conversions, why not incorporate the same strategy into EV charging stations? That’s the goal for many retailers, EV infrastructure companies and loyalty providers alike, but it’s still in the works for much of the industry, according to education session speakers and company representatives on the show floor.
Casey’s and RaceTrac are still working on the integration.
“[Casey’s has] made other strides to ensure we're recognizing who those EV guests are and identifying them through some creative routes to see what they're purchasing inside, how often they're coming inside—and is it just to use the restroom, or are they buying slices of pizza? Are they buying drinks? Recognizing that they do want to come inside; maybe they're just a little bored,” said Clark. “They're sitting there for 35 minutes. They want to do something, and they want to go to a clean store that has a great experience on the inside. They recognize a lot of these folks are a little bit more techy, and so they're going to be strong loyalty consumers as well.”
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