4 Benefits of EV Charging for Retail Businesses
Competition is high among retail businesses and finding new ways to compete in the market can be difficult. Retail business owners ponder upon questions such as: How to attract new customers? How to increase loyalty? How to boost sales?
Perhaps the answer to all three of these questions can be found within a new form of traffic.
The amount of fully electric cars in the UK has risen from 30 000 in 2016 to 780 000 in 2023. With the rapid growth in EVs on the road, the need for more charging sites increases. This means that offering EV charging at your retail location will give your business a competitive edge. As an early adopter of EV charging, your retail business can also position itself as a more environmentally conscious business.
In this blog post, we’ll share four benefits that EV charging brings to your retail business such as:
- enhancing the customer experience
- extending the customer time in-store
- attracting positive publicity
- helping you future-proof your business
1. EV charging at your retail location enhances the customer experience
It’s not enough to just sell products or services anymore, customers expect a retail location to deliver value and superior experiences.
Today, a superior experience looks like offering EV charging since this is what a portion of many drivers are in search of. EV charging encourages repeated visits from EV drivers and fosters customer loyalty.
The heart of a good charging experience
Speed and availability
There are things that need to be considered when adopting EV charging at your store. To maximize the positive impact on customer experience EV charging needs to be smooth for customers.
Speed and availability are the two key areas in attracting and maintaining EV drivers as customers. When a driver arrives to charge, they want to be able to quickly plug in their vehicle and start charging. At Kempower, we emphasize two things to ensure speed & availability. These are dynamic power and the installation of more plugs.
Dynamic power management means that the available power at the site is distributed to vehicles according to the model’s maximum charging rate and battery percentage at the charge point. This minimizes charging times and maximizes the speed and availability of chargers.
Dynamic power also enables the installation of more plugs. And more plugs mean better availability of chargers for EV drivers. The ability to plug in and charge directly on arrival significantly enhances the customer experience.
Smooth charging experience
Offering an exceptional customer experience for people means that their whole visit to your store goes smoothly. With EV charging this means that if any problems arise, they need to be solved quickly.
Our solution to this is the Kempower ChargEye software. Kempower ChargEye is a cloud-based charging management software that ensures that the charging goes smoothly for both EV drivers and charger operators. It enables remote monitoring and problem resolution, which minimizes customer complaints. The intuitive user interface makes charging easy and provides details on the charging session.
2. EV charging at your retail location extends the customer time in store
While EV drivers wait for their cars to charge, they can use the time to shop at your retail location. Many EV drivers decide which retail location to visit based on the availability of chargers.
Optimizing charging speed to fit your retail business
It’s possible to optimize the charging speed based on the type of retail business you have. At Kempower, we break down the best use cases for different locations based on whether your retail location is “on-the-move” or a “destination.”
With an on-the-move location, we refer to service stations or stores near a highway where people want to charge quickly and pop in to buy snacks at the same time. At this type of pit stop, drivers want to continue their journey without bigger delays.
This means you should offer more power to enable faster charging sessions.
Destination charging refers to supermarkets, department stores, restaurants, or other bigger retail businesses. Here the charging time can be a little bit longer since people intend to spend more time at the store. This also encourages the customer to spend more time in-store and not need to rush out to move their car if it’s finished charging too soon. Overall, this strategy can result in a more profitable visit.
With destination charging, the charging time is easily customizable with Kempower charging solutions.
Using advertising to encourage in-store customer visits
Kempower ChargEye supports the displaying of ads or discounts on the EV charging interface. With the approach of advertising on your EV chargers, you can offer discounts or loyalty points that will attract the driver into your store.
3. EV charging attracts positive publicity for your retail location
EV charging positions your retail business as a forward-thinking and innovative business. Offering EV charging also demonstrates the store’s commitment to environmental responsibility and sustainability. This is something that can even impress other customer groups outside of EV drivers.
In the long run, this positive publicity will bring more business because people are more aware of your brand and store. As mentioned earlier the customer experience is a central part of building a positive image in people’s minds. This begins already before people become customers and it’s essential for thriving business.
4. EV charging helps you future-proof your business
By offering EV charging, you put yourself ahead of the competition and it prepares your business for the increasing number of electric vehicles on the roads.
If you’re not confident in the amount of electric traffic you will get at the beginning, with Kempower you can start with a smaller number of chargers with the option of upgrading the system once the demand increases.
The Kempower Satellite charging system is known for its scalability. It’s possible to add more power modules and more plugs without always having to increase power on-site.
The ability to scale up and add more EV charging plugs is crucial for retail businesses because if drivers are not able to plug in their vehicles, they will move on to the next charging station option.
Forward thinking in the retail industry with EV charging
The amount of EVs on the road is only going to rise in the future. Many governments are implementing incentives and restrictions to decarbonize transportation, so electric vehicles are the way forward.
With this in mind, lasting and scalable charging infrastructure should be a priority for your retail businesses.
Curious to learn more about the possibilities of EV charging in the retail industry? Download our guide; ”Grow Your Retail Business with EV Charging” below.
Download our free guide on EV charging for retail below
Written by
Weera Ahmavuori
Communications Trainee