Article

Filling up at the kiosk

Several kiosk initiatives seek to transform the gas pump experience from the simple task of filling the tank to an opportunity to catch up on news, purchase products, and order food.

February 19, 2002

In the roughly three minutes that you normally spend pumping gas, the entertainment options are limited. You can clean your windshields, grouse about the price of gas, or perhaps stare aimlessly off into space.

But this rather bleak set of options could be changing.

Kiosks are already gaining status inside the gas station/convenience store, thanks to applications such as Circle K's ZapLink Internet and services access program and 7-Eleven's Vcom financial services system.

Now the kiosk is moving from near the checkout line to the pump itself. Several companies and convenience store chains are experimenting with ideas that could bring news and information, infomercials, games, and food ordering to the gas-pumping experience.

This fall, Cold Spring, N.Y.-based PointMedia Corp. began a test program for a gas-pump kiosk that offers news updates and sell products. The company was founded in 2000 by chief executive officer Chris Fadden and vice president of sales and marketing Seamus Carroll.

"The goal for us is to create a personalized, consumer experience at the gas pump," said Carroll.

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The original concept for PointMedia's PointTV kiosk was to turn the gas pump into a combination newsstand-shopping mall.

The company reached agreements with news-generating services that cover the whole spectrum of a 30-minute news program: ABC-TV for news and entertainment, Bloomberg for business, AccuWeather for weather forecasts, and SportsTicker for sports scores.

Along with the news, the kiosks offer the opportunity to look at various products, and order them using your credit card. All of this takes place, in theory, in the time it takes one to fill the gas tank.

"Once they start, I'm going to have 2 ½ minutes to inform them and entertain them and sell them," Carroll said.

Taking the test

PointMedia is currently testing the concept at three filling stations, in Fishkill, N.Y., Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and Danbury, Conn. A fourth kiosk will open in January in Newburgh, N.Y.

The company is also taking the kiosk to trade shows, displaying its uses and potentials to a wider audience. One such show was the NACS Show in Las Vegas Oct. 20-23. Carroll said the company got some unexpected feedback during the show.

"One of the things we picked up at the NACS Show was that customer relationship management programs at the gas station marketplace are important," he said. "A lot of people said we love your kiosks, but what can you do for a customer-loyalty program. We've done some modifications to offer customer loyalty programs that run on the kiosks."

The customer-loyalty element will probably be added to the kiosk in Fishkill, Carroll said. He anticipates the changes to be in place by January.

"If you use your credit card we can trace your purchase, or if you use cash you can input your phone number or a PIN number," he said. "Then you can get prizes based on the amount of fuel you've purchased. Your can swipe tour card at the kiosk and it will tell you how many points you have and what prizes are available."

Gas station patrons can watch news programs and purchase retail goods on PointMedia's PointTV kiosk.

The test program has led to other changes as well. Carroll admitted that the company has had to shorten its news feeds and make some other adjustments. The end result is quicker sound bytes, but a wider array or programming.

"Originally the news segment ran 60 seconds, but we've cut that back to 20-to-30 seconds, depending on how the feed comes in and how we can edit it. The ads and the infomercials we've shortened as well to get a few more ads into each rotation."

Full gas tank, full stomach

The concept of gas-pump kiosks can go beyond news broadcasts and custom-loyalty programs, depending on the objectives of the station owners.

For example, Mid-Atlantic convenience store chain Sheetz Inc., which offers customers ordering kiosks for its in-store sandwich shops, is considering moving the kiosks out of the store.

"We've run some tests with putting the kiosks outdoors on the gas island," said John Moulton, Sheetz director of store automation. "While customers are pumping gas, they can place their orders; this gives them a real speed advantage."

Moulton did not say when the company, which operates 265 stores, would make a final decision on deploying kiosks at the gas pump.

The long-term picture

For Sheetz, whose kiosk program is just one component of a multifaceted business, the kiosk objective is increased customer loyalty, a "soft" benefit. But for PointMedia, whose sole business is the operation and management of its kiosks, the stakes are higher.

Carroll would not reveal how much the privately held company had put into the product or what its revenue projections were in the short term. But he said the company's long-term revenue model was a combination of advertising and sales revenue.

"We don't anticipate selling ads for 18 months to two years," he said during the NACS Show. "At the beginning, we expect product sales to drive this. The goal is to get you to go to the Web (to purchase products)."

In return for allowing PointMedia to install and manage the kiosks, station owners get 5 percent of the revenue, with 10 percent going to the owner if the kiosk generates ad revenue.

Since launching the test program in early fall, PointMedia has generated some numbers and consumer reaction. Carroll said the deployment's uniqueness has generated favorable buzz, but that it is too early to determine what the data means.

"We've done about 60,000 presentations, but we don't know at this point how many people that represents," he said. "We've done some exit interviews and people like it. It's something to do while you're at the pump. And the store owners like it because it's something new and people are talking about in the stores. They perceive it as a new service that the station is offering."