5 key trends transforming convenience stores and gas stations

• Convenience stores are increasingly offering alternative payment methods, from mobile wallets to contactless wearables, to make checkout faster and more flexible.
• The rise of the self-ordering kiosk shows how retailers are redistributing payment moments across the store to reduce queues and increase throughput.
• The future of retail payments in this sector is less about introducing new tech and more about removing friction from high-frequency, low-margin transactions.
• Trust remains central, and questions like “are digital payments secure?” are growing louder as stores introduce more unattended, automated, and self-service journeys.
• Payments are increasingly embedded into the journey itself - fuel, food, and checkout blending into a single experience.
• Together, these digital payment trends point to payments becoming more distributed, more embedded, and more tightly linked to the overall customer journey.

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The U.S. Payments Forum released a market snapshot showing the state of EMV chip adoption in the United States in 2019. The report showed that the technology is now well-established in the U.S. with 63% of in-store payment terminals being chip-enabled, and 68% of total transactions being chip-on-chip.

With C-store EMV implementation still underway, fuel retailers have an additional challenge of complying with the EMV pump mandate which came into effect in April 2021. One study shows that chargebacks have tripled since January 2011. Both fuel and convenience merchants can strengthen their payment security by utilizing a multi-layer system of P2P encryption, advanced fraud detection, and transaction tokenization. To maintain their customer base and ensure future revenue growth, fuel and convenience retailers must make payment systems security a top priority.

With the growing popularity of electric vehicles (EVs), more and more consumers will need a convenient location to charge their cars. As it takes longer to electrically charge a car than a traditional gas fuel-up, c-store retailers have a unique opportunity here to lure consumers into their stores while their car is parked at the charging station.

As a result, these new business models mean that the store of the future will evolve into creating engaging experiences that can withstand even fundamental changes like new fuel types.

Convenience stores are now testing cashierless stores and drone delivery in an effort to remain at the forefront of innovation and customer engagement.

As these technologies grow and gain popularity, the c-store shopping experience will focus almost entirely on experiential retail and creating a frictionless customer journey. To meet customer demands, c- store retailers will have to find ways to make the checkout experience as easy, painless and exciting as possible.

Changing consumer behaviour: Nearly 40 million Americans fill up their vehicles every day. How they drive, consider gas prices and determine whether to shop inside a c- store for food, snacks and beverages has a profound impact on where they choose to fill up their vehicle.

Key insights include:

Customers make quick stop, grab-and-go visits, and expect a fast, secure, and convenient checkout experience whether at the pump or in-store. This becomes especially important as consumers are increasingly adopting different payment methods such as mobile app-based or contactless credit and debit cards, paired with value-added services.

Forecourts’ product and service offerings are continuously evolving, driven by customer demand for convenience. Fuel sales are declining, and will continue to fall in the future, while non-fuel retail offerings will gain prominence.

For this reason, it is vital for retailers and suppliers to understand that forecourts are now not seen only as gas stations but rather as c-stores, selling fuel. It is essential that they have payment systems with holistic commerce solutions to drive revenue and profits.

The fuel and convenience retail market is undergoing a fundamental shift, with drastically declining numbers of physical store locations, but growing revenue overall from a consolidating market.

Although more people are driving electric vehicles today, it seems unlikely that this has had much effect on the number of filling stations. The stark decline in fuel stations eased off just as EV charging points started to sprawl.

Fuel, convenience and energy merchants have more locations than any other brick-and-mortar retail vertical and generate over $500 billion in annual sales.

So, there you have it.

5 key gas station convenience store industry trends to keep an eye on. Interested in reading about more trends? Read about top 6 FinTech trends to look out for in 2022, plus our 2024 to 2025 predictions. You can also follow us on LinkedIn for more industry news.