GREENSBORO, N.C. -- The new fuel discounting features of Gilbarco's Passport point-of-sale (POS) system are helping retailers increase overall profitability, according to Kirsten Paust, manager of POS marketing at Gilbarco Veeder-Root.
Retailers are able to increase sales of other high-margin products or services by offering fuel discounts as an incentive, she said.
This was the case for Matt Shull, owner of Yorktown Automotive, a CITGO-branded retailer, in Parma Heights, Ohio, Gilbarco said. He offered customers a 10-cents-per-gallon [image-nocss] discount on fuel with the purchase of one of two high-end car washes.
Of all the car wash packages sold, the top two packages represented 65% of sales. Shull said. This far exceeds the industry average of 40% to 50% sales of high-end wash packages.
Fuel discounts can also be established as an incentive to use a specific payment type. Retailers may want to encourage their customers to pay by cash in order to save on credit card processing fees. Or, retailers may want to encourage use of their own card or payment device.
Retailers can also discount fuel based on the fuel grade selected. This allows the retailer to promote higher-margin fuels at the dispenser. Other Gilbarco products and features, including SMART Merchandising and Encore dispensers, can enhance the retailer's ability to promote the fuel discounts and expedite transaction time, said the company.
Passport documents and summarizes the discounts in a number of reports. A Discounting Report is available as part of the Manager and Cashier Reports. The discounts are also documented in the Car Wash Reports and on all receipts, the system displays the total savings for the customer.
The new fuel discounting features are available on Gilbarco Passport software for CITGO (version 3.08), Concord (version 4.01), ConocoPhillips (version 4.03) Shell (version 4.01) and ExxonMobil Jobber (version 4.00). It is standard in all Passport software versions 4.03 and later.
Greensboro, N.C.-based Gilbarco is a leading supplier of integrated fuel control, site management, and support services for petroleum marketers and commercial fueling enterprises worldwide.
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