Convenience stores are targeting two key types of customer profiles:
- The Regular Customer: He frequently and reliably visits the store for coffee, cigarettes, lottery, etc. When he’s hanging at home, he’ll pay extra for delivery of things like beer and snacks.
- The Impulsive Buyer: She stops for gas or passes by a store and remembers she needs something or gets a sudden hankering for Twizzlers.
Ideally, a C-store can attract a lot of Impulsive Buyers and convert them into Regular Customers.
But, C-Stores have a lot of competition for both types of customers. There are a number of big players in the market like Uber Eats to GoPuff who will target them with delivery times of 15-30 minutes for almost anything. Players like Dunkin’ and Starbucks grab the drive-thru coffee and sweet treat customers. Enterprise chains like 7-11 and Wawa are launching drive-thrus as well. In all situations, they steal the c-store customers and their data.
That was our inspiration for creating a SWIPEBY version for c-stores. The c-store business model hasn’t changed in 50 years, though their customers and the technology around them has substantially. C-stores are missing out on a huge revenue opportunity by not owning the customer experience and instead giving it away to delivery companies and the drive-thrus next door.
We knew set-up had to be quick and simple, because who has time for an enormous tech project that could take months to implement? We also knew that our features for customer location and being able to take advantage of their profile triggers would be invaluable to c-store owners and operators. We give the C-store operators the technology and wherewithal they need to convert Impulsive Buyers into Regular Customers.
It’s exciting to roll out SWIPEBY to c-stores across the country and watch history catch up with innovation. Now off to a C-store for some gas and some at-the-pump ordering of a coffee and Snickers while heading to the kids’ soccer game. Let us know if you want to learn more.
