Pop-In #1

Gas Station / Petro · Midlands, South Carolina

Branded gas station: EMV dispenser retrofit + tap-to-pay drove sales up 100% in under a year

EMV-at-the-pump retrofit kit and tap-to-pay turned a single-station operator into a 2x revenue location.

Headline metric

100%: Sales increase in under 12 months

Supporting metrics

• Tap-to-pay: At every dispenser, post-retrofit
• EMV at the pump: Compliant with the 2021 liability shift

The challenge

Pop-In #1 was running a non-EMV dispenser setup. Outside-pump card transactions were stuck on swipe, the station was carrying counterfeit-card chargeback liability after the April 2021 fuel-pump EMV liability shift, and tap-to-pay was not an option at the forecourt. Customers who wanted to skip the inside store and pay quickly at the pump were not getting that experience. Inside-store throughput took the hit too, because more customers had to come in to pay.

The solution

• EMV retrofit kit installed on every dispenser to bring the forecourt into compliance with the post-2021 liability shift
• Contactless / tap-to-pay enabled at each pump alongside chip and traditional swipe
• Forecourt-to-register reconciliation tightened so fuel sales and inside-store sales settle on the same merchant account
• Compliant signage and operator training so the new payment options were obvious to customers

The outcome

Within twelve months of the retrofit, Pop-In #1 doubled its sales. The ramp came from two compounding effects: faster checkout at the pump pulled in customers who had been driving past for the next station's tap-friendly forecourt, and inside-store traffic increased because the smoother forecourt experience changed the station's reputation in the area. The compliance win on the EMV retrofit also closed off counterfeit-card chargeback exposure that had been bleeding margin.