Dive Brief:
- Convenience store chain Sunshine Gasoline Distributors has upgraded its mobile app, now allowing customers to pay for gas from their mobile phones, according to a Thursday press release.
- The Florida-based chain is partnering with marketing technology company Liquid Barcodes to allow gas purchases via automated clearing house (ACH) payments at the chain’s roughly 400 locations.
- ACH payments are becoming increasingly popular thanks to their bank-to-bank structure, which allows companies to avoid the swipe fees associated with credit and debit cards.
Dive Insight:
Sunshine already used Liquid Barcodes for its original Max Carwash app, which includes a carwash subscription option.
Liquid Barcodes’ C-StorePay technology allows customers to connect their bank account to the app, then select the pump they’re using within the app and pay from their phone. Car washes, or carwash subscriptions, can be purchased at the same time and within the same transaction.
Customers will not be able to use credit cards for these purchases.
“We want [customers] to feel valued and know that their data security is of utmost importance, which is why we partnered with Liquid Barcodes to develop this app,” wrote Eddy Alvarez, senior operations manager at Sunshine, in the press release. “We only accept ACH payment and not credit cards to allow us to pass on the savings from credit card fees directly to the customer.”
C-StorePay, which Fairfax, Virginia-based Liquid Barcodes released in October, is an ACH payment system that can be tied into a variety of subscription and loyalty programs. Liquid Barcodes says its process allows users to connect and authenticate their bank account with the app in under a minute, avoiding a two-day wait for authorization that can come with some ACH processes.
Saurabh Swarup, general manager of North America for Liquid Barcodes said in the press release that C-StorePay can “save retailers thousands of dollars in credit card processing fees at each store by using ACH.”
Liquid Barcodes works with c-store chains including Circle K, 7-Eleven and Stinker. Recently, Smith Oil signed an agreement to use C-StorePay in its updated loyalty app, which is expected in the first quarter of 2023.
Doral, Florida-based Sunshine Gasoline Distributors, founded in 1987, supplies gas to 536 stations in Florida, and owns roughly 400 of those.
