Two years ago, when Phillips Petroleum Co.’s Circle K convenience stores tested web-enabled kiosks, they aimed e-place.com, as Circle K called its kiosks, at customers who did not otherwise have web access. But customers who don’t have web access at home or work appear not to want to have access to the web anywhere else, either. “The unconnected crowd was not the crowd using the kiosks,” says Scott Templeton, innovation group manager in charge of kiosk deployment for Phillips. “Most of the people using e-place.com had more than three years of Internet connectivity. They had credit cards and they knew how to shop online. More than 70% of the traffic was from people checking e-mail.”
So with Phillips’ new test of kiosks--which it has dubbed ZapLink--in Phoenix Circle K stores and at truck stops in Philadelphia, the target is squarely on the mobile user of the Internet. The sort of consumers that Circle K is targeting are not tied to one place all day, such as construction workers, salespeople and college students. "They are mobile. They use e-mail, PDAs, cell phones and other technology devices because they want convenience," Templeton says. In fact, there are two ZapLink kiosks on the Arizona State University campus, Templeton says.
Templeton says 40% of the income from the ZapLink program will come from advertising on the screen and on electronic tickers on the devices. The other 60% will come from sales of kiosk services. Circle K is in a revenue sharing agreement with the kiosk vendors, which own the kiosks and the technology. Info Technologies Corp. of Burnaby, BC, is providing the kiosks in Phoenix. Global Access Alliance Inc. of Bessemer, AL, is providing the Philadelphia machines.
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