It’s easy to picture a typical forecourt.
Fuel pumps are arranged in rows under a canopy. There’s signage with fuel prices and advertisements.
Now imagine a forecourt where carbon-fiber canopies provide solar power and use motion-powered LED lighting. AI recognizes a car when it pulls up and knows exactly what kind of at-the-pump multimedia interaction the customer would like. Machine learning directs the flow of traffic and tells customers what the wait times are. A fueling station screen allows customers to order food for in-store pickup while at the pump.
While that forecourt isn’t here just yet, it’s all possible in the not-too-distant future, say experts.
A common thread is that forecourts are becoming more experiential. In one vivid example, a retailer in Europe turned its forecourt into a kind of conveyor belt. When cars drive up, an employee attaches the fuel nozzle to the inlet and the belt slowly moves the car through the forecourt while the fueling takes place. While not the most efficient process, the experience has driven customer visit numbers up because it’s fun.
Multimedia programs at the pump (and the quality of the monitors) are important. The pumps themselves are getting an upgrade with technology that prioritizes speed, experience and ease for customers.
Evolving Energy and Fuel Needs
So where should retailers start when thinking about their future forecourts?
Neil Giles, the creative director of U.K.-based brand consultancy firm Circle, said retailers should first identify their objectives and priorities. Are they looking for something that’s easy to get in and out of? Are they hoping to create a one-of-a-kind experience? Do they want to prioritize the use of sustainable materials as sustainability becomes increasingly important to consumers?
If virtualization of the forecourt was easy, somebody would have done it by now because that’s what everybody wants.”
The key is for retailers to consider the overall impact of their brand and offer. “The combination of all the parts should work in harmony,” said Giles. That means the overall appearance of the site; the distinctive architectural design; the way the brand talks to its customers; the range of services and products offered; and even the placement of the trash cans and windshield cleaning stations.
Retail, design and brand consultancy firm Campbell Rigg thinks the surge in EV adoption and changing energy and fuel needs will offer retailers a huge amount of flexibility to rethink their design, and that innovative canopy designs can help customers look toward the future. The firm’s founder and CEO Campbell Rigg foresees electrification leading to partnerships among forecourt retailers, carmakers and energy providers.
He added that “hydrogen has the potential to become a vital part of the transport mix in a low-carbon future, requiring players to reinvent their business models to account for new infrastructure requirements (around fuel production, storage and distribution).”
A Spotlight on Signage
Another trend affecting forecourt design is the increased priority on food and beverage offerings. Riggs said forecourt signage and branding have improved and have become more of a focal point. Circle’s Giles added that his firm is seeing retailers emphasize advertising their inviting café spaces so that customers can see the offering when they drive up to the forecourt.
Terry Monday, the chief strategy officer for visual communication organization The Imagine Group, said she thinks retailers could take a page from the entertainment industry and go big with their forecourt signage.
“If you look at the out-of-home market, which is really billboards, bus shelters and all of those things, they tend to be pretty flat,” Monday said. “But there’s so much fun that you can have with that signage. For example, what if a [forecourt] had a three-dimensional coffee cup coming off the billboard?”
She said such a thing wouldn’t necessarily be inexpensive, but redesigning the signage and making it more interactive costs “a lot less than people think.” Monday also said that, in the forecourt, c-stores can play with organic shapes and colorful lighting to create a better experience. And as technology continues to improve, doing so will become cheaper over time.
Payments Get an Upgrade
The pumps themselves are also getting an update—although it may not be as noticeable. As retailers continue to meet customers where they are, prevailing trends at the pump include contactless payments, cloud technology and security.
Bob Danford, strategic accounts manager at Allied Electronics, said the key trend he’s seeing is “definitely to minimize—if not eliminate—hardware through virtualization [because] forecourt control is burdensome. There are many devices on-site that require constant polling and management.”
Those include the dispensers, card readers, payment terminals, price signs and car wash controllers that use legacy protocols that are decades old. “The challenge has been: How do you take these legacy protocols and convert them into IP [internet protocol] and send them on their merry way to the cloud? If virtualization of the forecourt was easy, somebody would have done it by now, believe me, because that’s what everybody wants,” Danford said.
Allied Electronics sees other trends emerging too. According to Akhileshwar Padala, the company’s head of engineering, AI remains top of mind and is being developed to assist with forecourt payments and security. Sustainability is also showing up at the pump; technology is being introduced that can reduce retailers’ electric footprint with new code modulation.
“The virtue of AI-based technology is that there’s a very good opportunity for developers to get [the technology] into the system and monitor the customer behavior at the pump and alert the cashier so that they can see if there’s a skimmer,” Padala said. “So [identifying] suspicious-behavior patterns … is where we can see the development is headed.”
With payments, Danford also expects that EV technology will become more integrated. Currently, “You swipe the card at an EV pump, and it’s a different experience than a pay-at-pump,” he said, but that will change in the coming years as retailers work to align more with the experience customers have today.
Customized Content for Fuel Screens
Elaine P. Kanak, the chief marketing officer at manufacturing company Gilbarco Veeder-Article, said customer expectations are also changing the at-the-pump experience: “Consumers are increasingly expecting to be recognized. They expect loyalty and personalization. They also expect convenience and a frictionless experience. They want to be able to pay in any different way that works quickly and well. And they want a seamless customer experience.”
There’s an opportunity for retailers “to really convey what their message is for customers,” Kanak said. “At the pump, you’re pretty confident that there are some human eyeballs there. So what we see is that in these big-screen shots, there’s a tremendous opportunity to connect with a broader audience of people who might be walking by the store … and to monetize some of that screen time.”
At the pump, you’re pretty confident that there are some human eyeballs.”
She’s seeing a lot of retailers “who are very interested in having their own branded content and being able to display that to customers and drive in-store sales to foodservice.”
Gilbarco Veeder-Article recently announced it’s working on at-the-pump ordering for foodservice. “We’re introducing a way for customers to be able to place their food order for that pizza, or whatever it is, while they’re fueling up, and then they can be in and out of the store even faster,” said Kanak.
Gilbarco Veeder-Article is also working on incorporating screens that were designed for boats (so they should work perfectly even in extreme weather) and offer a higher-quality viewing experience. The company wants retailers (or third parties) to be able to create customized at-the-pump content, and that level of customization extends to branding and appearance, too.
“Every retailer is going to have a unique strategy and brand message,” Kanak said. “And those are going to come to life in different ways. We just want to make sure our retailers have the tools they need to do what’s right for their audience.”
Looking ahead, Kanak sees the potential for forecourt technology to recognize the car as a sort of wallet. “There are some providers out there that are looking at how a vehicle can be used as a payment device,” she said, likening that experience to how customers can pay with their phones or watches in certain stores.
“What we’re seeing is that some brands or specifics are being customized to fit the unique needs for that brand and then production,” she said. “Our solutions are designed to be sizable or offer retailers flexibility to tailor their experience to their needs. … They might have different equipment or different layouts in different locations, so we will make that seamless and easy for them to manage.”