Retailers across the country are facing a tough call about whether they should install EV charging stations at their locations. On one hand, it’s maybe a smart idea that brings in more customers. But then again, it might turn out to be a big waste of money if those parking spaces usually just sit there empty. The pressure to make a call on this builds up. Electric vehicle sales continue to climb year after year, and some of the biggest retailers in the business (Walmart, Starbucks and Kroger) have already committed millions of dollars to build out their own charging networks. Waiting around too long to decide risks losing customers to your competitors who have already made themselves the most convenient place for EV drivers to stop and charge up.
This call is way harder than most business owners want to admit. Each charging station will run you tens of thousands of dollars just for the installation, and then the maintenance costs keep coming month after month. Property managers need to work out if their electrical system can even take care of the extra load, and on top of that there’s a whole mountain of permits and red tape to wade through before anything gets built. Retail owners worry about something different – will EV drivers actually get out and browse in the store, or are they just going to stay in their car and scroll through their phone for 30 minutes? When you’re staring down that investment for each location and there’s no certainty that it’ll bring in more customers or increase your sales, it makes sense that plenty of businesses get stuck in analysis mode and never actually commit.
Charging stations can either bring in a steady stream of new customers or sit unused – and which one happens depends on how you set everything up. Installation strategy matters quite a bit. Placement near the front entrance tends to work best, and the type of retail environment you choose will determine if EV drivers want to stop at your location. How you market these chargers matters too – they need to be promoted as a genuine customer benefit. Do this correctly and you’ll bring in steady new traffic. Get even one part wrong and you could wind up with expensive equipment collecting dust as other businesses in your area capture this growing market of EV drivers (who spend more on average than regular shoppers).
The data shows whether charging stations bring in more foot traffic.
Shopping and Charging Time
DC fast charging takes anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes to bring your battery back to a full charge. Drivers pull in at a charging station and find themselves with time on their hands. They don’t always plan for this wait.
When an EV driver pulls in at a charging station and plugs in, they’re left with roughly 30 minutes to kill as the battery does its thing. They don’t want to sit in their car and stare at their phone for that whole stretch of time. At some point, they’ll get restless and head inside to see what’s around. Maybe they’ll browse through the aisles for a few minutes and grab something to eat or pick up a coffee as they wait for their charge to finish.
Target tracked this behavior at their own stores and the data revealed an interesting pattern. At stores without EV charging stations, customers spent an average of around 15 to 20 minutes inside per visit. At locations where they had installed chargers, those same customers were spending between 30 and 60 minutes per visit – almost double the time.
It all starts to make more sense if you look at the pattern. A driver pulls into the store with one goal in mind – to charge the vehicle and get back on the road as fast as they can. Once they plug in and know that they have all this time before the charge finishes, the whole plan changes. They head inside and browse around a bit as the battery charges.
A quick charging stop can become a full shopping trip. Drivers pull in just to add some charge to their battery. But then they start to walk around the store. Before long they’re going through the different aisles and looking at products they had no intention of checking out. Most of them wind up buying at least a few extra items that they didn’t come in for.
When customers spend extra time at your location as they charge, you get something real in return. Every charging session turns into an opportunity for your store to grab their attention and get them interested in ways that just wouldn’t happen otherwise.
EV Drivers Spend More at Your Store
Traffic to your store is great. But the number that actually matters to your bottom line is whether those visitors convert into paying customers once they get there.
It turns out they do. Stores with charging stations usually see customer visits climb by 3% to 6%. The bigger effect shows up at the register, though.
Whole Foods has some interesting data from their EV charging stations – drivers who charge their cars there spend roughly 23% more per visit than the average shopper. Walmart’s locations with chargers show similar patterns. When customers have a reason to hang around for a bit, they wind up buying more items. Sheetz has watched this same trend play out with their charging customers. Drivers who plug in will usually grab some food and drinks as they wait for their battery to charge.
A shopper who’s already parked at your store for 30 minutes or more has the time to actually browse around.
The sales data tends to line up with what we’d expect from human behavior. When customers have more time to spend in your store, they’re going to make more purchases. That extra dwell time is an opportunity to increase how much each customer spends during their visit.
Which Store Types Work Best with Chargers
The type of store you run makes a big difference in whether an EV charging station will actually pay off. Grocery stores usually see the best results with charging stations and the reason makes sense – their customers are already planning to spend 30 to 45 minutes in the store anyway. Shoppers need to go through the aisles, grab everything on their list, wait in the checkout line and load everything into their car. That takes a decent amount of time and it happens to line up well with the time most electric vehicles need to charge up.
Shopping centers and sit-down restaurants follow this same logic. Customers who visit these places are already planning to spend at least an hour or two there anyway. A charging station gives them one more reason to choose your business over the place down the street. The time it takes to charge just blends right into how long they were going to stay anyway.
Gas stations and convenience stores run into a bit of a challenge with this one. Most of their customers are used to a quick in-and-out experience – we’re talking about 5 minutes or less at the pump. A 30-minute EV charging session just doesn’t match up with the typical customer experience at one of these places. Some customers will wander around the store for a bit longer and maybe grab an extra snack or coffee. Most just sit in their vehicle and wait around for the charge to finish.
What matters most is whether your charging times match up with how long customers were already planning to spend at your business. When they line up well, the charger brings in new customers and gives them a reason to hang around longer. When they don’t line up though, you’ll just have customers who plug in their car and wait without ever stepping inside to browse or buy anything.
Your own setup is worth looking at for a minute. You’ll have to think about how long most of your customers actually stay and what brings them in through the door. You also need to know if your store can hold their attention for 20 or 30 minutes when they have time to spare. The way you answer these questions matters a lot more for this decision than any general statistics about EV adoption rates or foot traffic patterns.
Why Free Charging Pays for Itself
Most retailers used to treat charging stations as a profit center – as in, each station needed to pull in enough revenue on its own to justify what it costs to install and to keep it running. For a long time, this made sense to just about everyone in the business. Over the last few years though, more store owners have been learning about the average EV driver demographic, so this whole mindset has started to change pretty dramatically.
EV owners usually have household incomes above $100,000 and they also spend more per shopping trip than most of your other customers do. From a business angle, the math makes a lot more sense. Would you prefer to pull in $3 or $4 from somebody charging their car, or bring in a customer who’s going to drop $50 on groceries or maybe even $100 on outdoor gear?
Plenty of retailers are starting to look at their charging stations the same way they look at their parking lots. Parking lots don’t make any money – and nobody expects them to. A parking lot is there to remove barriers and make the whole experience easier for customers when they want to visit and shop. EV charging stations work the same way. But it comes with one added benefit – your customers actually have a real reason to stay at your location for longer periods of time.
That dwell time is actually worth something to your business. Most of them will go through your aisles, browse for a bit and maybe grab lunch at your cafe or pick up a few items they didn’t plan on buying. With all that extra activity, free or cheap charging doesn’t cost you much at all. It’s more like a marketing expense that pays for itself because those customers spend more as they wait.
Some of the bigger retail chains have taken this concept even further. These chains don’t install charging stations – they actually advertise and promote them as proof that they get what EV drivers need and want to earn their business. Looking at the long-term value of it, it makes great sense. EV owners usually have higher incomes and they’re customers who need to charge up a few times a week, week after week, for years and years to come. Building strong brand loyalty with these customers can pay off substantially over the long haul.
When the Charger Spot Goes Wrong
A charger in the far back corner could have been cheaper to install, or maybe the electrical panel was already back there. In either case, it turns into a headache when drivers park at the charger and then have to walk halfway across the parking lot just to get inside.
The distance between a charging station and the nearest storefront actually matters for customer behavior. Say you’re driving through an area you don’t know well and your battery starts to run low. You manage to find a charging station, pull into the parking lot and get your vehicle plugged in. At that point, you’re stuck waiting around for anywhere from 20 minutes to a full hour.
If your store is too far a walk or the path to get there isn’t obvious enough, plenty of drivers will just sit in their cars and scroll on their phone instead – and just like that, the retailer has lost a customer. Poor signage (or no signage at all) creates the exact same problem. When drivers can’t see your chargers from the road, they’ll just keep going until they find a location that actually bothered to make it easy for them.
Equipment reliability matters even more than location does. A charger that breaks down or quits working halfway through a charging session creates frustration that will stick with drivers. EV drivers will remember that experience for a long time and they’re quick to share it with other drivers in the community. Word travels fast when online forums and charging apps make it quick for drivers to post reviews and rate locations!
The area around the charging station matters just as much as the equipment you install. A charger that’s tucked behind a warehouse or squeezed next to a loading dock won’t give drivers much reason to hang around and look around as they wait for their vehicle to charge. Drivers need amenities that are actually worth their time. A nearby coffee shop, access to a restroom or just a decent place to sit and relax can be the deciding factor between a driver who spends money at your business and one who just charges up and drives off without a second thought.
Convert Your Foot Traffic Into Extra Revenue
The best retailers in the business don’t leave the customer experience to chance. Every touchpoint gets mapped out step by step, and I mean every one. The parking lot, the entrance, the layout inside, the checkout process and even the walk back to the car at the end – it all matters and needs to work together as one smooth experience, because each step along the way can either build confidence or cause frustration.
ecoATM can help to bring more shoppers into your store too. Our kiosks give shoppers another reason to come through your doors and to actually stay for a while once they’re there. Customers have an extra incentive to visit (and an excuse to spend a few more minutes looking around). They can trade in their old phones for instant cash as they browse your store. Thousands of retail locations across the country already work with our kiosks to bring in extra revenue and build stronger connections with their community.
To find out how a device trade-in kiosk could work for your location, we can talk about that and work out what would be the best fit for your business. Smart ideas for your retail space need some planning to work, and we’re happy to be part of that conversation. Get in touch today!
