4 Factors Behind Mobile Payments at the Pump
By Jackson Lewis on Jul. 26, 2018BOSTON -- Consumers use mobile apps for all sorts of car-related activities, from finding parking in a crowded city to hitching a ride.
So why don’t more consumers use mobile apps to pay for gas? Boston-based online news source Pymnts.com recently partnered with GasBuddy, also based in Boston, for a report on the factors driving and hindering mobile payment at the pump.
Pymnts asked more than 10,000 mobile-using consumers about their habits at the gas pump and collected the answers and insights into the Paying at the Pump report.
Click through for more information from the report on mobile payments at the pump and how retailers can capitalize on the behavior …
1. Uncommon practice
The report found that 39% of commuters used apps to find and occasionally pay for gas. Consumers in 2017 purchased $59.6 billion in fuel overall, said the report.
Only about 22% of respondents said they use mobile apps to find discounts while shopping for gas.
Most consumers—57.4%—who use mobile apps for gas purchases use them to save money. The second-highest-rated reason was convenience, at 42.8%.
2. All about the prep
Of those who use mobile apps to pay for gas, only 63.8% consider having the ability to use the mobile app to pay for gas to be “very” or “extremely” important. The report theorizes that this indicates issues with consumer adoption.
Using mobile apps to research prices, however, is much more important. More than 81% of respondents consider the ability to shop for the best prices to be “very” or “extremely” important, according to the report.
3. Driving adoption
The report suggests that apps offering discounts have a better chance of being adopted more widely: 57.5% of respondents cited discounts as the top factor that encourages them to continue using an app for gas purchases. The presence of loyalty and rewards was the second most important factor that encourages greater app usage, with 55.2% prioritizing it, followed by the convenience of a mobile app, which came in at 54.2%.
When consumers were asked what they would want out of a mobile app built around paying for gas, they indicated that they want the ability to preorder in-store items through the app and pick them up in store. Slightly more than 25% of respondents said they would visit a gas station more often if a mobile app offered these functions, and 69.5% would visit the station with roughly the same level of frequency.
4. Keeping them away
Security concerns are one of the most important factors keeping consumers from using mobile apps for payments in any scenario. Nearly 42% of respondents who do not use apps for non-gas purchases indicated that they do not use them because of concerns over data security. Nearly 30% of respondents don’t want to share their data with app companies, and slightly more than 20% simply don’t want to take the time to learn how to use a payments app.
The study found, however, that the most powerful factor keeping consumers from using mobile apps for gas purchases is a lack of awareness. Nearly half (49.7%) of respondents are unaware of apps that can be used to make gas purchases.
The report suggests that app developers and gas stations can do more to raise awareness of these apps. It also indicates that any gas-buying consumer age 47 or younger would be a good target for efforts to raise awareness around these apps.
Photo courtesy of Book Catalog.