Idea: Take Gas Pump Advertising One Step Further

By Jason Sherrill
Posted on Oct 24, 2007

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Two gas stations I frequent are so close to being able to take more of my money, more often, if they'd just take their on-pump video advertising one step further. Here's my idea.

Two of my favorite gas stations have installed 7" LCD displays on their pumps to show me commercials while I pump my gas. There are two important facts relevant to this story:

1. I always pay at the pump with my credit card
2. I have a large gas tank that takes three to five minutes to fill

Yesterday, one of the stations had a good deal on a 4.5 oz bag of beef jerky with a 20 oz Coke for $5.00. Mmmm, sounded good to me. But I was outside pumping gas and I'd already paid at the pump, so I wasn't going inside the station. I thought to myself, "If there was a "Buy Now" button on this LCD screen that I could press to buy that Coke & jerky, and then someone would bring it out to me, I'd buy a Coke and jerky right now."

Prior to pay at the pump, everyone paid inside for their gas. I, like many people, often walked out with a drink, a snack or something else that I didn't intend to purchase when I walked in. With the popularity of pay at the pump, how much has "inside sales" revenue declined at gas stations? I've not seen any research, so perhaps revenue hasn't dropped at all. On the other hand, if it has, I suspect that a moderately busy gas station could earn enough profit from pay-at-the-pump sales to pay for the $8/hour delivery person who would run products out to the customers who impulse buy from the LCD ads at the pump.

Taking this a step further, I use the same couple of credit cards every time I visit the station, so it would be easy to identify me when I start my fill up. It wouldn't take long to build an Amazon.com-esque customer profile so "the Man" could precisely target products that I'm likley to buy. And the pump has already collected my payment info and no shipping is necessary, so the purchase is as simple as one touch of my finger.

I'm sure someone has already put this concept into practice somewhere, but I've not seen it yet in Michigan. Hmmm, maybe it's time for the boys at InetSolution to develop a new product.