Independent survey shows the value of PayPoint customers at convenience stores
- PayPoint shoppers spend an average 25% more per visit to convenience stores
- PayPoint shoppers visit the store more often (28%) every week
- Convenience store shoppers are creatures of habit, visiting the same store 200 times a year (up from 190 times in 2013)
Local convenience stores are having to fight harder than ever to attract customers but offering services, such as bill payment, continues to prove a significant draw, according to research released by PayPoint. The study of over 20,000 shoppers, conducted by him!, has shown that ‘convenience’ is continually evolving – meaning that ‘traditional’ convenience is having to work harder than ever to stay ahead of the trend. They are, for example, less able to rely on traditional products, such as cigarettes, newspapers and lottery, to drive footfall as these categories all suffered a decline in shopping ‘missions’ over the last year.
him!’s research reinforces the benefit to retailers of offering PayPoint to their customers. According to him!, the average PayPoint customer visits the shop more frequently than the average convenience shopper (4.6 vs 3.6 times per week), spends more per visit (£7.66 vs £6.13) and so is worth 60 per cent more over a week (£35.24 vs £22.07)…or an extra £684 per shopper per year.
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Andrew Goddard, Retail Director of PayPoint UK & Ireland, comments: “The trend towards convenience stores is now well-established and him!’s research shows that services are integral to the continued prosperity of the sector by pulling in customers in ever greater numbers. Not only are bill payments, top-ups, ATMs and other cash withdrawal services important revenue and footfall generators, but they also help consumers recycle their spending, often straightaway in the shop where they access the services.”
Jill Livesey, Executive Director at him!, says: “Convenience stores are now one of the most important formats for UK shoppers as they meet changing shopper needs and demographics. And this is likely to continue for many years.
“The local convenience store is often the heart of the community and plays a key role satisfying the trend for convenience products and services, a store they can rely on for not only distress purchase but for everyday needs.
“Services, such as PayPoint, are a key driver of footfall into store and are, therefore, a win-win situation providing value to the business owner, the retailer, and a valuable service to the shopper.”
ENDS
Enquiries:
Peter Brooker
Head of Corporate Affairs, PayPoint
01707 600356 / 07900 418960
[email protected]
Karla Winch/Cathy Donald
Brands2Life
020 7592 1200 / 07793 287 749 / 07821 571 296
[email protected]
About the research
Over 20,000 convenience shoppers were surveyed at 1,291 convenience stores, across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Interviews were conducted with shoppers face-to-face on entry to and exit from convenience stores in order to deliver robust insight based on shopper fact and not opinions.
ABOUT him!
him! has, for 40 years, helped retailers, service businesses and suppliers to understand their customers… and sell more to them. A consulting firm with an exceptional commitment to research, we have conducted over 15 million moment of truth "conversations", during shopping, giving robust database confidence and predictive skill. Our current 120+ blue chip client relationships are based on involvement in one or more of a number of exclusive customer tracking programmes or bespoke research-based consulting, making us experts in shoppers and shopping.
ABOUT PAYPOINT
PayPoint is an international leader in payment technologies, its solutions transforming payments for everyone from consumer and financial services companies to retailers, utilities, media, e-commerce, gaming and government clients.
PayPoint delivers payments and services by taking the complexity of multi-channel payments and translating it into convenient, simple, value-added solutions. It handles over £14 billion from 775 million transactions annually for more than 6,000 clients and merchants.
With the backing of 24/7 operations centres with dual site processing, PayPoint is widely recognised for its leadership in payment systems, smart technology and service.
Retail networks
The PayPoint retail network across the UK numbers over 27,200 local shops (including Co-op, Spar, McColls, Costcutter, Sainsbury’s Local, Tesco Express, One Stop, Asda, Londis and thousands of independents), where it processes energy meter pre-payments, bill payments, benefit payments, mobile phone top-ups, transport tickets, BBC TV licences, cash withdrawals and a range of other transactions. In Romania, the retail network numbers over 8,500 terminals in local shops, helping people to make cash bill payments, money transfers, road tax payments and mobile phone top-ups. In the Republic of Ireland, over 500 terminals in shops and credit unions process mobile top-ups and bill payments.
Collect+, a joint venture with Yodel, provides a parcel drop-off and pick-up service at more than 5,500 PayPoint retailers. PayPoint’s ATM network numbers more than 3,600 ‘LINK’ branded machines across the UK, and 9,100 PayPoint terminals enable retailers to accept credit and debit cards.
Mobile and Online
PayPoint Mobile and Online (formerly trading as PayPoint.net, PayByPhone and Adaptis) handles over 135 million payments for parking, payments and consumer services. In major cities in the UK, Canada, USA, France, Switzerland and Australia, its parking solutions make it easy for people to pay for parking by mobile, as well as providing electronic parking permits, automatic number plate recognition systems for car parks and penalty charge notices.
PayPoint’s core online payments platform is linked to 16 major acquiring banks in the UK, Europe and North America, delivering secure credit and debit card payments for over 5,100 online merchants. Its suite of products ranges from transaction gateway to a bureau service, in addition to value-added services such as FraudGuard, an advanced service that mitigates the risk of fraud in card not present transactions.