WAWA, Pa. -- Three months after launching contactless payment technology at all its stores, Wawa officials are happy we did it, said Robert Riesenbach, manager of new initiatives for the Wawa, Pa.-based convenience store retailer.
Customers that use contactless payment at Wawa love it, he said. Tying contactless payment to our Wawa Visa Rewards card has been a big win. Customers love being able to use contactless payment while earning rewards on their every-day purchases.
Riesenbach offered his thoughts yesterday during a web [image-nocss] conference hosted by Stores Magazine, the publication of the National Retail Federation (NRF), Washington, D.C., and sponsored by the Smart Card Alliance.
The Visa Rewards card, launched in mid-November, allows Wawa customers to earn reward points when they use their contactless debit or credit card to make purchase with the wave of the card in front of a radio frequency identification terminal. The reward points can then be redeemed to purchase gasoline or merchandise from Wawa stores.
We are currently seeing a fair number of contactless transactions, not huge, but fair, Riesenbach said, and it is gaining more traction each week as more cards are distributed by the banks.
Riesenbach said the company had two main concerns when it started the program: employee training and increased credit-card fees.
To alleviate the training issue, Wawa and its card supplier, Chase Paymentech, quizzed the store associates after receiving training and provided an incentive. All participants got a premium item when they returned the quiz, Riesenbach said. And all participants were entered in a drawing for $1,000. We found this was a very effective approach to communicating key points [to associates].
Regarding credit-card fees, Riesenbach said, We decided we can convert cash customers over to contactless, and as long as those spending increases make up for it, then we're fine with [the increased number of fees]. We are very optimistic that it will pay off for us.
Riesenbach said Wawa has seen increased spending from contactless users, but did not offer any specifics. David Sanderson, vice president of KeyBank NA, a contactless-card facilitator, said he has seen an average spending increase of 15% by consumers using contactless payment cards. That's even greater than we expected, he said.
At Wawa, where the company spent eight months preparing for the card rollout, Riesenbach said the company found it was very important to have strong project management in place to make sure all the pieces of the contactless puzzle fell into place. These pieces include:
Developing and selling the business case. Identifying suppliers, including bank and association partners, and equipment suppliers. Negotiating contracts. Managing logistics of ordering, distributing and installing equipment in stores and at the pump. Upgrading point-of-sale (POS) software and working with the merchant processor to upgrade company processes. Upgrading the pump/POS interface Developing and implementing training, marketing and public relations programs.Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.