Today’s consumer demands easy-to-use, secure, fast products and solutions, so retailers are not able to successfully run a forecourt with a bad layout or poorly connected products and solutions. At Dover Fueling Solutions® (DFS), we consider connectivity to be an important element for a positive forecourt operation, especially throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa (European Commission, 2022), which is why we are helping to connect our customers’ forecourts completely – a whole 360 degrees.

Earlier in the year, DFS launched DX Power™ - a solution that integrates EV chargers with Prizma, DFS’s connected mobility and convenience hub, to provide retailers with improved visibility and control, and customers with flexible payment options. A station in Iceland recently installed DX Power™, and has already captured the great improvements this solution has made on their business and customers: the ability to provide a user-friendly EV charging station, while having increased visibility and control across all transactions on site.

“The energy mix in the fuel and convenience retail industry is changing,” said David Mc Guinness, Director Product Management, Electric Vehicle Charging, DFS. “DX Power™ will help future-proof businesses by allowing them to easily navigate the energy shift and ensure they’re well prepared to serve a combination of customer needs. This solution further strengthens DFS’s product portfolio around EV charging.”

As more and more stations begin to invest in alternative fuels (IEA, 2023), whether that’s Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), EV or Hydrogen, the need for connectivity has never been so important than now. The good news is, Prizma spans a continuum of options and opportunities including end-to-end secure payment, clean and conventional fuel types, and connected cloud solution – making achieving site-wide connectivity easier than ever.

In addition to the above, retailers should consider how collecting the data their customers leave behind can drive positive changes. Sure, a station might offer contactless payments – both inside and outside – self-checkout kiosks or secure payment terminals that operate with cash, but has the retailer considered integrating cloud-solutions as well?

A cloud-enabled solution can help to manage all site data and monitor and analyze information faster and more accurately. Keep in mind, customers will have different preferences on how they want to pay – it is the retailer’s job is to make sure they have the choice they expect, while our job at DFS is to provide them with the products and solutions they need to make these choices possible day in, day out.

The right data can help retailers understand what their customer preferences are, such whether their preferred method of payment is cash, card or contactless, as well as the average number of times they visit their forecourt within a week, or if they use the car wash daily or only once a month. Once this information is available, forecourt operators can start to paint a bigger picture and understand their customers on a whole new level, improving the customer journey, increasing sales and profit margins, and becoming the forecourt that motorists will want to visit.