What does the term “smart gas station” mean? What features it should have? How can IT solutions boost its operation in relying on all aspects of the non-fuel business and gas station chains? These are the question we are going to discuss in this article.

We have been facing some crucial changes in the non-fuel business concept over the last decade. While some new players on the market are still trying to form an assortment of products in order to come up with some great offers for the customers, others have successfully passed this stage and seek for some better tools and features to boost their sales.

The majority of gas station chains do not see another way to develop their businesses but to change the product offer replacing one item with another. As a rule, such approach brings the lack of efficiency.

The business simply goes round and round waiting for some revolutionary product delivered by suppliers. Unfortunately, it may take them decades to bring something unique and original to grab the attention of the customers. Moreover, consumers today have plenty of alternatives. Retailers reduce the prices or look for the cheapest suppliers in order to cope with the competition that grows tougher each day. A few of them actually stay on the market.

On the one hand, gas station cafes are in better position if compared with c-stores. Every cafe has actually the same assortment that includes coffee, snacks, fast food and some other traditional goods. They appear to be the major sources of the income for 100% of all gas station cafes considering impulse purchase. It does not really matter sandwich or coffee of what brand you actually bay. Quality, price and taste are the only things that matter for the gas station customer. On the other hand, business owners should consider some other factors that can also affect the level of sales. Here are some of the most crucial ones.

Staff

Every time you need to hire a new employee for your c-store or gas station cafe, you should consider a set of essential abilities and skills. A perfect candidate should be able to handle different tasks at the same time. The lack of control and poor monitoring of the staff can be to the detriment of the overall success. At the same time, employers are physically unable to track every step of their employees, which often leads to inefficient performance. Is there any solution to this problem? Of course, there is.

The only way out is the development of IT platforms for a particular business niche that will provide easy-to-use and efficient tools to perform effective management and take control over the non-fuel business and gas station chains. When we say “IT platform”, we mean a set of technologies and software as advanced means to enable optimal conditions for handling a wide range of different tasks at the same time.

Moreover, we already have such solution for gas station chains and c-stores. We have introduced our IT platform that has proved to be efficient on one of the major Russian gas station chains. Our solution brought billions of extra revenue to Gazpromneft. It appeared to be a revolution for the Russian on-fuel business. Other companies tried to follow our example using their own solutions but they failed, as they still do not have a clear understanding of the crucial secret of success.

Every time you want to establish an efficient business approach, you need to monitor your every coffee machine round the clock. Our IT platform delivers the exact information on every coffee unit remotely to our control center where the real-time data is processed by our specialist at short notice. You can visit our website and check how it actually works.

Complete IT Solution for Gas Station Chains

Of course, coffee machine monitoring is not the answer to all questions. Non-fuel business requires a complete IT solution that will cover every aspect of the niche starting from marketing strategies and tools to attract more customers to IT monitoring and remote tracking platforms.

Remote Monitoring

We have introduced such a complete solution also known as an automated management system for non-fuel business and gas station chains. The project is actually a traditional IT concept that is aimed at increasing the level of business efficiency and productivity. The main mission of our platform is to keep the highest level of customer service as well as the quality of products you sell at gas station cafe or c-store. We have integrated some essential tools like remote monitoring system for coffee machines. The solution has proved to be extremely efficient, as it brings millions of extra revenues.

Smart Order

Managing your product reserves is vital for any c-store or cafe. Every time you have a poor control when forming a new order or monitoring the quality of order execution by suppliers, you feel inevitable face the sales reduction. According to the latest statistics, such situation can lead to million dollar losses. Smart Order will let you avoid such losses and benefit from maximum revenue once you have installed our system.

Our system will check if the products are placed in the right way. It enables an efficient merchandising as well as tracks the activities of your employees. The platform also works remotely. A supervisor will hardly be able to check more that 4-5 % gas stations by himself. It can lead to inappropriate staff performance as well as technical problems. We deliver a solution that eliminates any physical obstacles and reduces the influence of the human factor.

Final Word

Our complete automated management system for non-fuel business and gas station chains comes with a set of fundamental features and functions ion addition to a programmatic technological solution. The system can be easily integrated with any other platform. It is based on a simple infrastructure including 1C and SQL servers. Customers can manage the system using simple cluster PHP/JS и BMS Control systems. The system generates and delivers all necessary data in real time round the clock.

We have actually shown how IoT solutions can be integrated into non-fuel business. The Internet of Things is new to Russian retailers. For this reason, our solution made a great success. It means that some businesses have a great chance to get a competitive advantage as a handicap for further development.