No shops, no toilets, just pumps
23 Jan 2003
Twelve Shell petrol stations in Finland and France have been converted into so-called unmanned 'Shell Express' outlets with customers paying at the petrol pump using debit or credit cards.
The obvious advantage to this scheme is that the customer saves time. Shell says it takes just three minutes to fill a vehicle at a 'Shell Express' station, compared to an average of six minutes in a traditional retail station. And I'm sure it does.
But 'there are no loyalty schemes, no shops, no toilets - just pumps,' said Jim Rands, who manages the introduction of retail innovations for Shell Europe Oil Products. So anyone who needs the loo is going to have a major problem.
It's catching on though. Since its launch in June last year, Shell Express has achieved big increases in fuel sales. At the Lahti site in Finland there was a 300% rise in fuel volume. In France, the sites have attracted customers from hypermarkets more quickly than expected.
Shell says that the introduction of Shell Express has not led to a decrease in sales at traditional manned sites indicating that the two types of outlet appeal to different customers. That must be the customers who need the toilet and those that don't, then.
'I think there is still the need for manned stations - and for a long time yet,' said Mikael Ulfstedt, a sales assistant who works in the Satashell site in Turku, Finland, where Shell has launched four Express sites. 'After all, we sell a lot more here than just petrol.' That's right - and let's not forget the toilets either.
If the trial proves successful, Shell hopes to roll out unmanned service stations across Europe. Let's hope, however, they are not the only stations one will find spaced out along large lonely sections of the A14. And I think I can categorically speak of behalf of all my fellow kidney-stone sufferers when I say that.
