Forecourt operator Naz Zokiuddin is challenging the industry’s accepted wisdom that convenience stores are essential on petrol stations, with plans to develop a network of unmanned sites providing car care, drinks and snacks from vending machines.
He is working on three locations where he will operate without staff: Blackburn, Burnley, and the small market town of Sanquhar in Dumfries and Galloway.
Zokiuddin, who trades as Refuel Forecourts with a portfolio of 11 sites, seven of which are trading, says he will only consider running a convenience store on a petrol station if it turns over £10,000 a week.
“It is said that everyone should have a convenience store on a petrol station, but who said that? I refuse to believe that. You don’t have to have a shop on site, and if you do it could be whatever it is needed to be; maybe full car care,” he says.
“If a shop cannot achieve £10k a week, I am not interested. I believe less than that, and you have to subsidise it by reducing your fuel margin to run the shop with staff wages and bills creeping up.
“Without any overheads, fuel margins are great at the moment. I don’t want to give 1p [a litre] from my fuel margin to run a shop, what is the point of that?”
Unmanned sites are popular in rural and remote locations where the level of traffic cannot support employing staff. But Zokiuddin is not the only operator to see the potential in urban unmanned sites: with Asda, Certas and Go already in this space.
Zokiuddin says his model will be similar to Go, the Irish petrol station business which Zokiuddin says is shaking up the market in Liverpool with cheap fuel from self-service sites. “I was a bit scared as they were selling so cheap, and sold a site a couple of years ago in Liverpool because of that,” he says.
His template will include valeting, laundry machines, Amazon lockers, dog washes and vending machines. “If we cannot justify having a convenience store, why not bring convenience to customers in a different shape or form?” he says.
At our recent On the Road with Forecourt Trader event, hosted by David Charman, Zokiuddin showed interest in the Flying Turtle vending machines. The units, a similar size to Costa Express, and offering a choice of up to 350 made to order drinks, can be positioned outdoors.
Other vending machines will provide essential items: “If you have a forecourt you can bring convenience to customers with vending machines. And I am thinking why not have a car care section in the vending machines?” says Zokiuddin.
His first unmanned service station will be at Sanquhar, a former petrol forecourt, which is due to open in September. It is one of four sites that Zokkiuddin leases, and is expected to have two jet wash bays, a rollover, parcel lockers and laundry machine, alongside two fuel pumps.
The Blackburn site, which will become Zokiuddin’s head office, will follow. Here he has plans for two pumps, two jet wash bays, a laundry machine and a dog wash.
And at Blackburn he is considering trialling his own Refuel petrol brand. It is Zokiuddin’s home town and where EG On The Move has already established an own-brand fuel concept.
But Zokiuddin still backs convenience stores where they can hit his sales targets. His site at Inverness, for example, which he bought in November and will be a new- to-industry business, will have a shop, with food to go, and it will be staffed.
The £2m planned investment in the one-acre plot will include four fuel pumps, three jet wash bays, and a rollover, and is expected to be open by the end of this year.
Meanwhile, his first three Scottish sites he acquired in January will keep their shops: Bellshill Service Station in Hamilton, and Lonend Service Station in Paisley purchased from Pearl Forecourts; and Mauchline Service Station in Ayrshire from a local dealer.
Bellshill and Lonend, which have two EV charging bays, will be given upgraded chargepoints, and improved valeting. And the Mauchline site will be improved with an extended shop, an alcohol licence and an extra jet wash bay, bringing it to two.
But his ambition now is to grow by finding abandoned sites where he can introduce his unmanned template. “We can put so many services on a forecourt to make it vibrant without a shop.
“Customers will benefit from cheap fuel, and I won’t be fighting a losing battle all the time with increasing costs.”
