Inside Franchise Business

Author: Brad Howarth

CMO Magazine’s Brad Howarth spoke to Julie Laycock, our General Manager Marketing about digital. See a snapshot from his piece below or read the full story online.

As digital experiences completely transform the nature of convenience for consumers, 7-Eleven invests heavily in new technology and customer connection.

The proposition for convenience stores is pretty straightforward. But how does that translate in a world where convenience is now more often associated with digital experiences rather than those in the real world?

This is one of the challenges facing Julie Laycock, head of marketing for 7-Eleven Stores in Australia. Her general management role sees her heading a blended marketing and commercial function that includes teams for insights, marketing communication, brand, digital marketing and loyalty.

At 700 stores and growing, 7-Eleven’s value has always been connected to attributes of location and availability. But the rise of home delivery services such as Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Drive Yello is starting to change consumers’ definition of what convenience means to one where the things they want come to them.

The company’s website has traditionally been a lower priority in comparison to its store environment. But in 2016, 7-Eleven took a significant stride into the digital realm with the launch of the its 7-Eleven Fuel App, which uses customer’s current location and real time fuel price data to help motorists to find the best local fuel price at their five closest 7-Eleven stores. They can then ‘lock in’ that price and redeem it at any 7-Eleven Australia fuel store within seven days.

In three years more, than 1.7 million customers have downloaded the app, collectively saving more than $12 million on their fuel purchases.

The functionality of the app has since been extended, so customers also get exclusive product discounts and offers, with more than 1 million offers redeemed. A quarter of these redemptions occurred in January 2019, when 7-Eleven held a month of fuel app freebies with a new product offered every day.

“Fuel App users tend to visit more often, and spend more per visit, including in store, than non-fuel app customers,” Laycock tells CMO.