Fuel Rewards ™ Overview

Through its patented Fuel Rewards Program, Centego Marketing creates synergies between the grocery store and fueling centers, increasing same store and gasoline sales and profits. By offering consumers tremendous value through gasoline savings, the grocer and potential petroleum partner experience increased consumer loyalty. This highly efficient and innovative co-marketing program is accomplished at minimal cost to the grocery retailers (with or without gasoline stations) and their strategic fuel partners. The program is also run within convenience stores as issuing and redemption sites or redemption-only sites.

Fuel Rewards savings target consumers with eye-catching, colorful signage at the point of sale moments before their purchasing decisions are made. Because 70% of buying decisions are made at the shelf, the customer is incented to purchase a Fuel Rewards product because of the enticing FREE GAS offer. Time and time again, participating manufacturers show double-digit increases versus control stores when participating in Fuel Rewards, retailers experience high ROIs, and consumers benefit from free gas.  A truly win-win-win solution.

Centego Marketing through its parent company, AutoGas Systems, holds seven patents related to the rights to provide free fuel as a reward in any amount (dollar amount or cents-off-per-gallon) to consumers who purchase products and services.  The discounts can be issued at the fuel station or at a partnered retailer’s location that may or may not sell fuel.

How Fuel Rewards Works

In a particular month, hundreds or thousands of items may be featured which, if purchased, offer the consumer significant savings on their weekly gasoline purchase.

The process is simple. The consumer selects Fuel Rewards brands from throughout the store. When he or she checks out at the register, the savings are automatically recorded using their store loyalty card or a “fuel club” card.

The more Fuel Rewards brands the customer buys, the more he or she saves on gasoline. The customer may then go to the designated fueling center to claim their free gasoline and subsidize their gasoline purchase. The customer simply swipes his or her card at the fuel dispenser, and the price per gallon will roll back based on the amount of free gas earned.

Fuel Rewards is extremely cost-effective. Manufacturers only pay for redeemed receipts. There are no issued fees to manufacturers. With redemption across all chains at approximately 20%, this is a strong program with significant consumer interest - yet manufacturers benefit from slippage, which traditional TPRs don't allow the manufacturer to do.

Fuel Rewards Program Background

Fuel Rewards was created to help the growing number of grocery stores with gas stations in their parking lots increase sales and profits. With loyalty programs increasing in popularity across the industry, this was a natural evolution. In essence, these grocery retailers wanted to reward their customers with less expensive gas, but without Fuel Rewards their only tool was to lower their street price, which didn't produce the desired effect.

Instead, grocery stores got involved in price wars with nearby gas stations -- dropping prices across the board and reducing already low profit margins to next to nothing. Forced to continually lower their price to keep pace, the grocery stores were ultimately losing money on their gas. Furthermore, they were giving away inexpensive gas to people who never went inside their stores for groceries.

Fuel Rewards is a marketing tool that allows retailers to keep the street price at a good, steady level while rewarding the customers that buy groceries in their store with tremendous savings on gas.

The Fuel Rewards™ Program from Centego Marketing works with the retailer's point of sale (POS) system. The POS recognizes Fuel Rewards™ category exclusive products and generates free gas savings each time one is purchased (taking into account any minimum purchase requirements). The more Fuel Rewards™ products a customer buys, the more free gas they accumulate.