Page 1 | GasBuddy 2016 | Proprietary & Confidential

Serving Your Customers

This Holiday Season Some Helpful Tips from GasBuddy

Page 2 | GasBuddy 2016 | Proprietary & Confidential

Table of Contents

3 Serving Your Customers This Holiday

3 Tips from GasBuddy and How We Can Help

6 Working with GasBuddy

7 Key features and benefits

Page 3 | GasBuddy 2016 | Proprietary & Confidential

Serving Your

Customers This

Holiday Season

-- Some Helpful Tips from GasBuddy--

Whether a single-shop independent store owner

or part of a nationwide chain of convenience

stores, you may not think that fuel retailers play

a role in holiday commerce.

And you’d be wrong.

While fuel costs remain low, overall sales for fuel

retailers and convenience stores with fuel sales:

“Retailers are … bullish on the convenience store

industry’s business prospects. More than three

in four retailers (78%) said they are optimistic

about the convenience store industry, an

increase from 73% last year.”

Despite mixed feelings going into last year, it

ended up being a strong holiday season for

retailers of all types--and Election-based

uncertainty is giving way to overall optimism for

the 2016 holidays.

“Despite the year’s somewhat deflationary retail

environment overall, holiday sales saw solid

growth in 2015. Consumers happily shopped

online, with many “very satisfied” with the

experience. Bricks-and-mortar stores created

unique experiences. And technology has

continued to allow innovative ways to build

loyalty, increase delivery options and provide

visibility into inventory. Looking ahead to 2016,

it’s clear that retailers are getting better at

understanding shoppers’ needs, wants and

desires.”

1 (NACS 2016 study)

2 “2016 Retail Holiday Planning Playbook,” National Retail

Federation (NRF)

Well, we’re well into the holiday season--

a season that brought in $626 billion in

in-store and online sales last year,

according to the NRF, an average of

$806 spent per person on gifts and

holiday-related spending last year.

According to Convenience Store Decisions,

consulting giant PwC predicts holiday spending is

expected to reach its highest point since the

Great Recession--increasing by 10 percent over

last year.

Page 4 | GasBuddy 2016 | Proprietary & Confidential

While “Black Friday” -- the day after Thanksgiving

-- was for years the traditional unofficial kickoff,

in recent years, holiday shopping, or at the very

least, holiday promotions, have started earlier

and earlier. According to the NRF, last year more

than half of retailers started their holiday

promotions before Labor Day (September 5), a

trend that continued this year.

Some shoppers embraced this:

From a poll taken in early October, nearly 10

percent of shoppers “considered their holiday

shopping complete,” and nearly 20 percent plan

to have their shopping done “before November

begins.”

And … some didn’t:

In a scientific poll of 1,000 American adults, 73

percent agree with the statement that “it is

annoying that the holiday shopping season has

gotten earlier.” Forty-eight percent strongly

agree. Just 21 percent disagreed.

“The great news is the retail store is not

dead. But the retail store that does not

have a meaningful relationship with the

consumer is dead.”

-- Steve Barr, U.S. Retail and Consumer Sector

Leader, PricewaterhouseCoopers

Regardless of your take on holiday calendar creep, there is still a LOT of shopping to be done between

Thanksgiving and Christmas--and a huge opportunity for you to provide a valuable service for consumers

looking to make a quick purchase as they travel.

And while most of the buzz was around mobile and online shopping, physical stores continue to play an

important role in holiday shopping:

Most everyone, from the go-getters to the procrastinators, still have to finish (or even start) their

shopping. And many will be turning to you as they travel from Thanksgiving through New Years:

87% of shoppers are still very likely to purchase at stores this year

75% of total credit sales happen in the store environment.

82%of them actually prefer brick and mortar to online buying

3 BestBlackFriday.com

4 CreditCards.com

5 Epsilon Holiday Survey

6 Alliance Data

7 NRF “2016 Retail Holiday Planning Playbook”

Page 5 | GasBuddy 2016 | Proprietary & Confidential

Fuel retailers and convenience stores will play an

important role in all of this. According to the

NACS, the association for convenience and fuel

retailing, the U.S. convenience store industry has

154,000-plus stores that account for $575 billion

in sales. And here’s three major reasons why you

are an important cog in the travel-heavy, holiday

shopping machine:

Convenience Stores Offer More

Convenience: Convenience stores offer

speed of service to time-starved

consumers who want to get in and out of

the store quickly. These shoppers

recognize this channel of trade for its

convenient locations, extended hours of

operation, one-stop shopping, grab-and-

go foodservice, variety of merchandise

and fast transactions.

The convenience store industry is

America's primary source for fuel.

Overall, 80.7% of convenience stores

(124,374 total) sell motor fuels. A

reclassification of fuel locations in 2015

led to a more accurate reading on

convenience stores selling fuel. Overall,

there was a 2.5% decrease (3,214 stores)

over 2014. A majority of convenience

store growth in 2015 came from non-fuel

operations as more retailers decided to

focus on foodservice and merchandise

offerings inside their stores.

Convenience stores have an

unmatched speed of transaction: The

average time it takes a customer to walk

in, purchase an item and depart is

between 3 to 4 minutes. Here's the

breakdown: 35 seconds to walk from the

car to the store, 71 seconds to select

item(s), 42 seconds to wait in line to pay,

21 seconds to pay and 44 seconds to

leave store. (Source: NACS Speed Metrics

Research, 2002)

You’re everywhere, and you’re fast.

Will travelers do ALL of their holiday

shopping with you? It’s unlikely. Will

they do a portion of it, from an

impulsive “point of purchase” buy

to picking up beer or wine en route

to their Thanksgiving, Chanukah or

Christmas destination? It’s likely.

Page 6 | GasBuddy 2016 | Proprietary & Confidential

And here’s where

you can help.

The holidays coincide with the busiest travel

season of the year (and more foot traffic in your

stores than usual):

“During the 6-day Thanksgiving travel period, the

number of long-distance trips (to and from a -

destination 50 miles or more away) increases by 54

percent, and during the Christmas/New Year’s

Holiday period the number rises by 23 percent,

compared to the average number for the

remainder of the year.”

“And although heavy media attention focuses on

crowded airports and bus and train stations on the

Wednesday before and Sunday after Thanksgiving,

when personal vehicle trips are added to the mix

the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS)

reveals that Thanksgiving Day is actually a heavier

long-distance travel day than Wednesday.”

This represents a tremendous opportunity

for you to be a resource during the holidays.

While their primary purpose for visiting your store

may be to fuel up and grab a snack, “in-store,

there’s a growing desire to surprise and delight

customers,” according to the NRF. “[F]irst and

foremost, retailers want to get the basics--

challenges such as merchandising and inventory

management--nailed down,” adds the NRF.

The converse remains true: fail to “surprise

and delight,” and fail to recognize revenue.

16% of revenue is at risk (on average) by

the retailer due to poor customer experience.

8 U.S. Department of Transportation

9 LoyaltyOne

10 PwC

11 NRF “2016 Retail Holiday Planning Playbook”

Make sure every employee is on message, and that

message is “surprise and delight.” Every answer

should be given with a smile--and for those that

can’t be immediately answered, a confident “please

wait here until I find the answer to your question”

should be delivered, with full eye contact.

Make the buying is easy--echo the

simplicity of online shopping: Used to

frictionless checkout online, customers want a

similar fast and easy checkout experience in-store.

They also want Wi-Fi access to check product

availability and prices. And knowledgeable sales

associates to help find products and explain

features.

“Smart Merchandising” is key. “Consumers

still have a solid idea of what they want when

they head to a store, but remain heavily influenced

by what they see and feel. Shoppers reported

making 43 percent of their purchase decisions

during the shopping experience.”

This is a tremendous opportunity--from

unique beers and wines near your register to

a selection of last minute “of course I brought a

gift” gift (flowers, candy) as well as a special

selection of local specialities--put these where they

can’t be ignored, and where they will catch your

clienteles’ eye.

Keep it Clean--and Keep it Available.

Particularly in regions likely to have rain or

(gasp) snow over the next month, make sure your

store is spotless--particularly at peak periods of

foot-traffic (Thanksgiving, Christmas and New

Years). If necessary, hire additional staff simply for

shelf-stocking and cleanup, and work closely with

your vendors to ensure that the most popular

items (from foodstuffs to beer and wine) are

regularly restocked.

Page 7 | GasBuddy 2016 | Proprietary & Confidential

Working with GasBuddy

For the past two decades, pundits have touted “the

year of holiday e-commerce” every year. And while

this is becoming closer than ever to the truth, there

are two important facts that work in your favor:

In-store retail still matters--and no matter

how many shoppers venture online, it

always will.

Working with us, you can easily have an

online presence--and gather and respond

to real-time feedback from customers.

This year, we introduced GasBuddy

Business Pages, what some have informally

referred to as “the Yelp of the convenience

store industry.”

So with that, your store or stores are in the catbird

seat--able to take advantage of the unique benefits

offered through in-store shopping, and leverage

customer data and an online presence to ensure

customer engagement and discovery.

GasBuddy--a pioneer in crowdsourced information,

leveraging cutting-edge technology, big data and a

passionate community of over 60 million users--

has unveiled GasBuddy Business Pages, a business

intelligence tool for retailers and c-stores that helps

your organization make smarter decisions, drive

results and create a better customer experience.

Using GasBuddy Business pages, you can take a

data-driven approach to your business with

effective marketing channels, customer experience

metrics, and market trends and competitive

analysis--and provide prospective customers with a

way to learn more about your stores and offerings,

while fostering customer engagement.

Page 8 | GasBuddy 2016 | Proprietary & Confidential

Key features and benefits include:

DASHBOARD: User-friendly design lets you

manage your fuel prices, store listings, amenities

and more from one easy-to-navigate location.

STORES & GAS PRICES: Update prices, lockdown

amenities, and highlight listings with badging and

branding.

STATION ANALYTICS: Measure footfall traffic at

your locations and benchmark against nearest

competitors.

GB CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE: Monitor store ratings

and reviews, sponsor gas card giveaways, create

custom challenges and re-target based on user

behavior.

COUPONS & PRICING: Access promotions

carousel, unlimited white-label coupons and in-

store deals, integrate loyalty programs and

personalized pricing.

COMPETITIVE BENCHMARKING: Performance

comparisons available by time period and

competitor, and receive daily customer ratings and

page performance updates.