Phillips Petroleum Co. joins the growing list of service station providers experimenting with in-store retail kiosks. Two kiosk providers have launched tests of kiosk installations at the company’s Phillips’ 66 Circle K convenience stores in two regions of the country. If successful, they’ll jointly be responsible for rolling out as many as 1,200 kiosks early next year, says Oklahoma-based Phillips. Info Touch Technologies Corp., based in Burnaby, BC, Canada, will develop and install 35 kiosks in the Phoenix area, while Global Access Alliance, a Bessemer, Ala.-based consortium of kiosk companies, will develop and install 40 kiosks in the Philadelphia area and at truck stops in selected southeaster locations.
Different kiosk applications are part of the test at both companies. Among the applications tested are video kiosk-to-kiosk chat, local news and driving directions, bill payments including cash payment for Internet purchases, e-mail access and online shopping. Customers using the in-store kiosks at Circle K locations will be charged a usage fee which varies according to which application is being used from a few cents to 20 cents per minute.
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