In case you missed it, Stuzo’s VP Sales & Business Development, Mark Budreski, alongside one of Stuzo’s payments partners, Jed Rice, Global Head – Retail Innovation, PayPal and Quaseer Mujawar, Sr. Product Manager, Alexa Automotive, Amazon, were invited by Winsight Media’s Customer Engagement Forum to join a panel discussion, moderated by Jackson Lewis, Technology Editor at CSP Magazine.
During the panel discussion, Convenience and Fuel Retail operators fired a number of great questions at the panel. A few of these questions, including summary responses from the panelists, included below:
- What kind of lift are operators seeing from offering a branded mobile wallet? (i.e., a branded mobile app with pay at pump and pay in store capabilities)
- Mark Budreski, Stuzo: We’ve seen an operator prove that its mobile consumers are visiting more often, spending more per visit, have a tendency to purchase higher grade fuels, and have higher brand affinity, compared to non-mobile consumers.
- How is PayPal’s One Touch Acquisition (OTA) helping operators?
- Jed Rice, PayPal: We’ve seen an operator using our OTA capabilities receive a 250-375% increase in repeat users. This is a result of the trust consumers have in the PayPal brand, and the streamlined registration process that enables a consumer to onboard with an account and payment method in a couple clicks.
- Illustration provided below for reference:
- What is in store for the future of voice in the car at Amazon?
- “I can’t comment on Amazon’s future roadmap.” (Followed by many chuckles from the audience.) Amazon believes that mobile was huge and will continue to be, however another huge future modality will be voice. Voice will enable the consumer to do much more and will be a simpler and more intuitive interface for things like paying for gas at the pump, and much more.
In addition to the panel’s valuable insights, during a different session, a marketing executive from Convenience and Fuel Retailer Thorntons provided an exclusive look into the success of Thorntons Refreshing Rewards mobile app and loyalty program.
“42% of all our transactions are rewards transactions,” said Thorntons’ executive. “We are very happy with this. The sky is the limit and we’d like to increase [this], but this has been very successful.”
Thorntons went on to share: “Look into the total cost of your loyalty program. You need your team to look at what it will realistically cost based on redemption numbers and you need to be able to justify the costs to your CFO. Also, come up with offer sets that you’ll keep around a long time. You don’t want to introduce something that you can’t keep as the customers will get upset when you take away something they love. Be deliberate when you come up with your offer sets.”
(Followed by applause and many words of congratulations on Thorntons success from the audience.)
