Jan
27
Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show: Payment at the gas pump just got cooler
I once heard a statistician characterize Las Vegas—at, of course, a convention in Las Vegas—as “a monument to people who do not understand probability and chance.” To her point, gambling profits indeed built the town. Reno, about 400 miles to the north, was the more prosperous town until “Bugsy” Siegel convinced mobsters to finance construction of the Flamingo hotel-casino resort. That is what set Vegas on its path to becoming the Nevada gaming town.
(It was an outcome that Siegel didn’t live to see. Fellow mobsters gunned him down in 1947 for exceeding his $1.5 million construction budget by about $5 million. This is one of many reasons that applying for a construction loan with the mob is for the most part ill advised.)
Today Las Vegas bills itself as the “entertainment capital of the world,” an entirely defensible claim. For that matter, it is no stretch to deem Las Vegas the convention capital of the world. Book your convention there and you’re likely to pull more registrants than you will in other cities. A good number of those registrants will show up late and hung over in the morning, but you can’t have everything.
If you were fortunate enough to take in the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas earlier this month, you emerged with exciting news for you and your vehicles.
Thanks to a joint effort between Exxon-Mobil and Fiserv, you’ll soon be able to pull up to a filling station and tell Alexa to activate a pump, as shown in this one-minute video. A recent Fiserv press release reported:
ExxonMobil and Fiserv announced that they are transforming the way people pay for gasoline using Amazon Alexa. Coming later this year, consumers with Alexa-enabled vehicles, Echo Auto, and other Alexa-enabled mobility devices will be able to say, “Alexa, pay for gas” when they pull up to the pump. This new experience will initially be available at over 11,500 Exxon and Mobil stations in the U.S.
This is no small deal for the payments industry. According to the United States Energy Information Administration, Americans burn through some 391 million gallons of gasoline daily. ExxonMobil supplies about 17.2 percent of that. With the average price of a gallon of gas in the U.S. at about $2.54 as I write, that’s a potential $171 billion in daily gasoline sales for Alexa to start tapping into.
Moreover, it appears that the market is more than ready for app-driven gas purchases. Here are some impressive stats from PYMTS.com:
- 68 percent of adults who pay for gas with mobile apps buy it as often as once per week
- 73 percent of users who pay for gas with mobile apps said they are more likely to visit the store again if the app experience is convenient
- More than half (57 percent) of consumers who pay for gas using mobile apps say they would do so more often if the apps could also pay for c-store products
- 85 percent of Bridge Millennials say that receiving discounts is the most important feature of a gas app
Another PYMNTS.com article highlights comments by Head of Global Digital Commerce Fiserv’s Nandan Sheth, who …
… told PYMNTS in a conversation shortly after the news broke that it was “big news” … for gas station operators, and a big step forward for voice commerce. But, he noted, it was also still just one of many to come … Although many use cases could emerge, the most effective ones … will simplify the commerce experience for the customer and do that without a lot of complicated interactions between the voice-enabled platform and consumers … “There is so much power that we think will be ultimately surfaced as consumers are just becoming more used to this and more into it and more complicated uses cases start making sense to develop.”
ExxonMobil’s participation comes at an interesting time in the energy giant’s history. Just 12 years ago, the ExxonMobil announced that it would begin selling off its company-owned retail gasoline locations. Stores would continue displaying ExxonMobil branding and selling its products but be owned by independent operators. Reuters reported at the time that “sky-high crude oil prices squeeze margins” drove the decision. Regardless of who owns the stores, ExxonMobil remains a substantial player in the industry.
Also quoted in the Fiserv press release, Americas Fuels Marketing Manager at ExxonMobil Eric Carmichael said, “We’re excited to bring new technology and better experiences to the gas station. We build and seek out technology that will wow our consumers, providing both ease of use and security.”
It makes sense and, in fact, seems all but inevitable that Fiserv would lead in a payments venture of this scope. Fiserv boasts millions of business clients, including the world’s largest brands, payment networks and mobile wallets. It is uniquely positioned to support a connected ecosystem of consumers across omni-channel devices like mobile phones, connected cars, and internet of things (IoT) devices.
As I have disclosed before in this space, Fiserv happens to be my employer. I figure that from time to time I’m allowed to brag about the company I’m lucky enough to work for.