Take it from Coca-Cola — your gas station needs customer insight

If asked to name the top 20 brands worldwide, chances are high that Coca-Cola makes the list. It’s not just by chance that they are one of the most well-known names of the last century, their marketing game is strong — and they are the ideal brand to take inspiration from, regardless of the size of your business. This iconic brand truly knows their customers inside out, and to keep ahead have recently introduced Coca-Cola Lens.

The platform uses data and insights from third-party sources to provide insight into trends and nuances in customer behavior. Launched in May, it allows users to gain data insight into optimal cold vault flow, food service digital trends, and diner psychology— with more features expected to be added. Like Coca-Cola, if gas station owners want success, then knowing your customer base is crucial. Being retail specific, Coca-Cola Lens doesn’t provide all the data needed for a fuel site analysis, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t complete data available on your customer.

Mass Mobile Data (MMD), identifies the who, what, when and where of your unique customers and can be hugely valuable to gas station owners. It is generated from cell phone data and tracks the location of a device, providing current and reliable data on a person’s movements. By creating a geo-fence (a virtual geographic boundary) around your gas station or convenience store, you can pinpoint your own customers and reveal in-depth customer insight.

Request a sample MMD report or read on to find out more.

Kalibrate’s Mass Mobile Data report can be ran on any physical location in the United States meaning that your own sites, potential sites and competitor sites can all be analysed, with each report highlighting:

• Where customers travel from
• Where they live, work, and play
• In-depth demographic information
• Which lifestyle segments they’re a part of
• Where they go to before and after visiting your site

The complete data and insight package for gas station owners

Whether building or acquiring a new site, or investing in existing sites, gas station owners need to know that their investments will generate profit. It’s crucial to know how sites are performing to gain maximum advantage as investing thousands of dollars into your gas station without any prior insight is risky business.

From extensive experience surveying retail fuel and convenience sites in over 70 countries, Kalibrate created the 7 Elements for Fuel and Convenience Retail Success which are:

• Location
• Market
• Brand
• Facility
• Merchandising
• Price
• Operations

Location– location is arguably one of the most important factors in gas station success. To thrive, solid insight into your consumers and their habits is needed so that your gas station gets enough traffic flow, is in a convenient position, and serves the needs of the local customer base.

Market– successful fuel retailers understand their key competitors and have insight into how they might react to marketplace changes. They also know where their competitors are building, what they are building and how they operate.

Brand– retailers need to understand the position of their brand relative to critical mass and saturation. Before a fuel retailer reaches critical mass, the network is vulnerable to competitive threats and acquisitions.

Facility– efficient flow through the fuel purchase and shopping experience is crucial. Are there enough fueling positions to meet customer needs at peak times? Network consistency is also important, yet often an overlooked challenge for retailers with multiple sites.

Merchandising– success depends on the correct product and price mix, adequate inventory, fresh merchandise, and a clean, neat appearance. Offering the right products and services, at the right time, at the right price, is the art and science of merchandising.

Price– How a retailer prices fuel or store merchandise can influence buyer behavior. Awareness of pricing in the trade area and consumer preferences is key. No matter what the strategy, the price must be perceived as competitive by customers.

Operations– Even the best facility and location in the world will have difficulty maintaining volume with inadequate operations. Employee impact can’t be overestimated. Well-trained, quality people who are retrained over time will contribute positively to the bottom line.

How to access insight into the 7 Elements for your gas station

Kalibrate’s Single Site Analysis  provides an in-depth report into fuel and convenience store sites. It gives business owners a complete view of customers, competitive landscape, store sales and fuel volume potential — it also allows you to build an EV charger strategy. Our customers have a sense of security and can be satisfied that their strategic decisions are backed by data, rather than gut-feeling.

Vincent Sullivan, VP of Marketing and Sales at Sullivan Petroleum Company, owns and operates 8 gas stations as well as being the ChevronTexaco marketer and distributor for Bakersfield California. He relies on Kalibrate’s Single Site Analysis reports to aid with funding decisions, support tactical decision making, and validate assumptions with scientific data. He says:

“There isn’t one section of the analysis that outshines the others, the entire package is fantastic. It’s very in depth. It gives you an analysis of the competitors in the area, estimated gallons, and estimated store sales. You get the full picture of how everyone is performing around you and how you’ll perform as well.”

“The cost is relatively small compared to the return it provides. It’s a small initial investment that gives you an invaluable foresight on what your station’s profitability could be. We rely on the Single Site Analysis reports ourselves, and we also encourage all of the sites we work with to get reports completed prior to investing in new sites. This ensures that both us a as a distributor and them as a retailer know how well the site is projected to perform”.

To see more examples of Kalibrate’s Single Site Analysis positive impact read our case studies here.