Retailers/Malls

Decision Made Easy

As retailer with your own customer parking lot (or a shared lot in a mall-like setting) you enjoy many benefits by employing ParkPod systems. The following should make your investment decision an easy one:

Climate Protection (more about this here)

• By helping to electrify your customers' traffic you can make a substantial contribution toward climate protection.
• Especially in dense/urban areas, you can contribute to improving air quality considerably.
• "Green PR" – Your company will be viewed by your customers, the media and the general public as being "with-the-times" and climate-conscious.
• As an enabling provider of decentralized energy storage (think of all the batteries of vehicles plugged-in on your lots) you can cooperate with electric utilities to foster the economical operation of renewable energy sources (e.g. wind, solar)

Customer Satisfaction (more about this here)

• Enhanced customer experience - your customers can not only park, but also re-charge their vehicles conveniently while shopping. You attract progressive, higher-income customers.
• You can significantly influence the time customers spend at your store.
• You are acquiring a new element for your marketing mix, which works well for promotions, loyalty programs and loss leader tactics.
• You acquire an easy-to-administer tool for marketing alliances.

Capital Effectiveness (more about this here)

• You acquire a new revenue source, which can provide more lucrative margins than many typical retail formats. Equipment and variable cost are limited and you set the price charged to customers, thus driving profits and ROI's.
• You improve the ROI on your parking lot real estate, which you have to offer anyhow. You can administer your parking lots more effectively, and can recognize and prevent abuse more easily.
• Your investment risk can be limited significantly through participation in one of our pilot programs.
• You open up profitable cooperation possibilities with third parties, e.g. energy utilities.

Control of Your Business (more about this here)

• You control every important aspect of ParkPod deployment toward your business goals, and thus increase your competitiveness.
• You acquire a future-proof, flexible system, which is configurable and expandable to meet your needs.
• You control the degree of integration of your ParkPod system with your IT.
• You don't have to share your customer relationships and/or data with anyone.

Case Study for Retailers (illustrative only):

Jane Doe drives onto your customer parking lot. She is a proud owner of a new car, a Plug-In-Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV). Jane has just dropped her kids off at daycare, and before her appointment with her tax accountant would like to do a little shopping. It is Monday 10 a.m., and her state of charge is "50%" or "half" (this, hopefully, refers merely to the state of her car’s battery…). Jane knows it'll be a few more miles before she'll arrive at the accountant's office, but has so far tremendously enjoyed her quiet, climate-protecting and cost-efficient gliding along the city's boulevards in "pure electric mode".

Luckily Jane knows your store and the recharging service you offer. She quickly finds one of the designated parking spots. She swipes her store card across the illuminated status display on the ParkPod charging station (the display doubles as a card reader) to authenticate herself and unlock the cable which she now grabs and connects to her vehicle. In leaving for your store entrance, she glances toward the status display to make sure it switches to "orange" (charging in progress). "Sweet", she says to herself, knowing she'll now spend about 45 minutes in your store. This is the time she can charge, which was preprogrammed by you, as your experience suggests it to be the optimal in-store duration from a cost/benefit point of view.

"If I spend at least $50, I get to charge for free today". Jane has understood your promo message perfectly. "All right then, let's also grab some of these…" And your revenue has just been boosted, while your customer proceeds with a smile and a "bargain". All this at an incremental cost of three kWh or 45 cents (typical, not guaranteed).

You do have of course the option to offer your customers a pre-paid charging card, possibly combined with other loyalty instruments, or to run your charging stations as a profit center, with attractive margins to boot. You can even let your best customers charge for free, with low risk, as you fully control variable costs.

In addition, your urban parking lot can be shared more equitably and utilized more profitably. Should Jane overstay her 45-minute contingent, you could gently remind her, for example at the cashier. Your POS system has long identified Jane through ParkPod's networking capabilities. You know exactly who charges, when, where and how long, even days and weeks later. This customer data is yours alone, and can be used to gain insights on your customers' behavioral preferences, and thus to fine-tune your store's shopping experience or your marketing efforts even more effectively. Sharing this data with third parties (subject to applicable laws and regulations) is purely optional with a ParkPod system.

Jane happily continues her trip, now "80% charged" and after her tax appointment stops by the Bistro, where she will have lunch with her friend. Jane is delighted, that like your store, the "Bistro" chain is member of the marketing alliance "Clean City".By authenticating herself with your store card at Bistro's charging station, she can now fill up with more clean electrons before heading onto the freeway and back to daycare. No customer data needs to be shared to enable such alliances, thanks to ParkPod's encrypted user key architecture. In fact any authentication can be switched on and off remotely through the Internet.

"Simply awesome, this system!" reflects Jane, humming on her way to her kids. And I don't even have to stop at these smelly gas stations anymore. Why exactly, did it take us so long to come up with electric cars…?"

You meanwhile, are preparing for an on-premise shoot with the local TV channel, which wants to report on your business as a noteworthy e-mobility and sustainability pioneer in your city. "Practically free PR…", you ponder "…hard to turn down, isn't it?"