Seven months after relaunching its fas Rewards loyalty program, Arko Corp. has set a goal of growing the program’s membership to 3 million members in the next year. The goal was announced during Arko Corp.’s third-quarter earnings conference call earlier this month.
“We invested in loyalty, which impacted our same-store merchandise sales metrics,” said Arie Kotler, chairman, president and CEO, “and we plan to continue our efforts to expand our loyalty membership base, targeting 3 million enrolled members by the end of 2024.”
First launched in late 2020, fas Rewards was relaunched in late March with a variety of new features, including in-app member-only deals not available in stores, order and delivery services, age-verified offers on tobacco and alcohol, a store locator with current gas prices and more.
At that time, fas Rewards counted more than 1.3 million members. Since then, the retailer has grown that base through rewards and membership promotions, including an enrollment campaign that gave customers $10 in savings on their first purchase.
“We believe that our loyalty program develops and enhanced our relationship with our customers, drives more trips and spend with our existing customers, and attracts new loyal customers,” Kotler said.
- Arko Corp. is the parent company of GPM Investments, which ranksNo. 6 onCSP’s 2023 Top 202 list of the largest c-store chains in the country.
The enrollment promotion, which ran May 17 through Sept. 19, helped increase membership to 1.85 million consumers.
“We added more than 365,000 enrolled members during the quarter,” Kotler said. “This is a 50% increase in enrolled members since the end of Q3 2022. We attribute the increase to our strong $10 loyalty-enrollment promotion. In addition, I’m very pleased that our loyalty members are taking greater advantage of the value we offer and participated in more of our member-only promotional activity this quarter.”
To illustrate, Kotler said at stores where fas Rewards had not previously been implemented before the relaunch, 19.3% of our merchandise sales this quarter were from enrolled loyalty members.
“We believe that mix can grow and help to achieve 30%-plus merchandise sales penetration over time,” he said. “Our active enrolled members generate greater sales and contribution compared to our non-enrolled customers.”
Richmond, Virginia-based Arko Corp. is the parent company of retailer GPM Investment’s, whose “family of brands“ includes Fas Mart, Shore Stop, Scotchman, BreadBox, Young’s, Li’l Cricket, Next Door Store, Village Pantry and Apple Market, among others.