Of the over 600m-euro sales the domestic branch of Hungary's MOL oil group estimated it generated in 2006, 20% were came from related services, says Cristina Osiescu, marketing manager of the company.
From the way products are arranged on the shelves of a filling station, to the large advertising campaigns, everything in the oil market is geared towards attracting customers to the brand. The company that has the best idea in this regard stands to gain the most.
"80% of domestic sales are sales of oil products. In terms of volumes sold, 40% are generated through the use of fleet cards of companies, while 45% of sales are to everyday consumers through the use of loyalty cards," says the representative of MOL Romania.
MOL is not the only company on the market to use fleet cards, however, loyalty cards are a unique product used by MOL.
"In terms of services there are less major differences. In practice, there are two categories for services - services connected to filling operations and others related to retail. For the time being, we have not introduced financial services to our filling stations as these services are used to back up sales and this is unnecessary at present," says Osiescu.
Though stores in filling stations are no longer a unique feature of any single oil company, as most competitors on the market have embraced the principle, there are differences from a normal approach to supermarket retail.
"In a filling station products are arranged in a way that allows the customer to browse the shelves, rather than proceeding directly to the cash register. There are some general standards and practices that can be implemented for this type of retail. One cannot simply apply the strategy of a supermarket, there's much less time for actual shopping. (...) The way the retail space is arranged is extremely important," explains Osiescu.
For this year, MOL Romania has an investment budget of 12 million euros related to the expansion of its filling station network, which at present totals 121 filling stations. The sales of the stores within filling stations increased by 24.4% last year, above the national average growth rate of the demand for consumer goods, 10% in 2006 year on year
Last year, fuel sales registered by the group on the Romanian market increased by 26% year on year, with the Hungarian group last year achieving a 14% market share, an increase from 13% in 2005.
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