With P97 Networks joining the PDI engagement solutions suite, our mission of “connecting convenience” just accelerated! While PDI and P97 have been working together for many years with mutual customers, it’s a whole new ball game to be on the same team.

Mike Melson, SVP/GM, Payments & Loyalty at PDI, and Don Frieden, Founder and CEO at P97, discuss what our combined technologies and solutions for payments and loyalty mean to your business.

Read about the P97 Networks acquisition

Like to hear more from Mike and Don?   

Register now to join us at Connections Live 2025 in Denver, CO from August 24-27. This is your opportunity to hear PDI leaders discuss the latest solutions and future roadmaps for payments and loyalty. 

Want more loyalty content from PDI?

Check out C-Store Loyalty Insider for the latest in convenience loyalty—at PDI and across the industry.

Streamlining Sustainability

PDI Sustainability Solutions experts created a turnkey carbon offset program for Corpay to:

• Differentiate its business services
• Help customers reduce their carbon footprint
• Gain a unique competitive advantage

Business Challenges

• Develop flexible yet comprehensive sustainability programs for a wide range of customers
• Ensure a reliable way to quickly measure, validate, and report on program performance and results

Solution Overview – PDI Sustainability Consulting and Solutions

Whether you’re just starting out or well into your sustainability journey, PDI offers turnkey solutions and expert consulting services that help you differentiate your brand with eco-friendly programs your customers will love. Now you can get a custom-built program with measurable performance and independently verified results.

Read more about PDI Sustainability Solutions

Customer Results

• Helped customers achieve their corporate sustainability goals
• Collectively offset carbon for over two billion gallons of fuel
• Outpaced anticipated performance with a 186% ROI

In today’s fast-paced convenience and fuel retail industry, your business is constantly facing changes and new challenges. From shifting consumer behaviors to breakthrough technology and stiffer competition, the effort to maintain your business edge can feel like an uphill battle. 

That’s why “Connecting Convenience” is more than just a tagline for PDI. To us, connecting convenience means providing you with the solutions and tools to boost productivity, make smarter decisions, and engage more effectively with your customers. 

We’re continually investing in innovative solutions and services that streamline core business operations to further increase your profitability—whether you’re running a single location or managing a national retail chain. 

Today, much of the industry recognizes PDI for our Enterprise solution, which has provided a reliable technology foundation for fuel and convenience retailers across the decades. But did you know that we deliver a lot more than ERP software? You can now go well beyond ERP with over 30 different PDI solutions designed to help you secure your business, engage consumers faster, enhance your customer experience, and unlock the full potential of your data. 

More than ERP: A fully integrated retail ecosystem 

If you’re like many convenience retailers who already know and use PDI Enterprise, the good news is that these additional offerings integrate seamlessly with it! 

You not only get the benefits of each solution—you benefit from the collective advantage of working with a single vendor, leveraging systems your IT team already knows, and building on a rock-solid technology foundation. 

The result? Greater efficiency and higher productivity to streamline your operations while opening new growth opportunities for your business. For instance, with PDI Retail Site Management, you can leverage enhanced capabilities like PDI Enterprise Foodservice and Next-Generation Lottery Tracking. 

Or, if you’re thinking about upgrading to Electronic Shelf Labels, PDI offers the only solution that’s fully integrated with both Enterprise and Pricebook. This level of integration creates exciting new ways to expand your in-store digital media, strengthen your loyalty program, and create a good base for your retail media network strategy. 

There’s a PDI solution for each business goal 

No matter the size of your business or your progress on your digital transformation journey, PDI helps convenience retailers succeed in a variety of ways. We’ll help you: 

• Secure your business: Strengthen security for all aspects of your business to protect your key assets and customers. 

• Engage consumers more effectively: Use targeted tools to connect with your customers at every touchpoint on their own terms. 

• Elevate your customer experience: Create seamless, engaging experiences in-store and beyond. 

• Turn insights into action: Unlock the value of your data and analytics to build impactful engagement strategies. 

• Expand your brand: Amplify your brand and solutions to reach new markets and customers. 

• Supplement your team: Leverage PDI professional services expertise to fill gaps and enhance your operations. 

Leveraging PDI’s powerful, integrated solutions as the backbone of your convenience ecosystem, you can feel confident that your business will be ready for whatever comes next. 

Explore Now or Connect with an Expert

Contact our experts to discuss how PDI can help your business far beyond ERP—today and well into the future.

Explore now

When it comes to fuel and convenience retail, loyalty and payments are like peanut butter and jelly. Sure, they’re great on their own. But when you combine them…that’s where the magic happens. 

Before exploring why loyalty and payments are the perfect pairing, it’s helpful to review why both are important on their own. 

First, let’s first talk about loyalty 

To cut to the chase, a loyalty program is the #1 factor that influences a customer’s decision to visit a c-store.¹ This is why loyalty programs have become table stakes in the hyper-competitive fuel retail market.

While everyone has their own ideas about loyalty, and every retail loyalty program is unique, there are three core characteristics of any successful loyalty program:

1. Actionable: Loyalty should provide personalized, valuable experiences for customers to drive desirable behavior and brand affinity. This requires a strong commitment to marketing and staff training, which are important for attracting, engaging, and retaining your loyalty customers. (It doesn’t hurt to remind non-loyalty customers what they’re missing out on.) 
2. Measurable: When customers go from anonymous to measurable, you can collect first-party behavioral data then use it to identify and target customers individually, measuring which loyalty offers and tactics are most effective. This approach also provides scoreboard metrics to track program performance, such as Loyalty Penetration Rate (% of total transactions tied to loyalty). On average, identified customers visit your site 1.5X more and spend 29% more per visit.² 
3. Valuable: Consumers join loyalty programs to be rewarded for their loyalty. That’s why it’s so important to understand what types of offers and rewards your customers want (and the perceived value of these rewards).

Based on PDI’s loyalty experience, the three most influential loyalty offers include:

• Acquisition offer: A strong introductory offer that motivates new members to reach the “tipping point” of their fourth loyalty transaction. 
• Everyday fuel offer: Consumers receive a cents-off-per-gallon discount or earn points/rewards for every gallon (fuel savings is the top motivator to join a c-store loyalty program).² 
• Everyday spend offer: Consumers earn points or rewards for every dollar spent (the recommended value exchange is a 4% reward value per each dollar spent). 

Now, let’s talk about payments 

A payment solution enables retailers to accept their own method of payment inside the store and at the pump. The two main components of a payment program are Mobile Payment Processing Application (MPPA) and private label debit: 

• Mobile Payment Processing Application: The gateway between payment services and the retailer’s POS, which enables payment processing at the pump.   
• Private label debit: The retailer-branded payment card and/or mobile app that’s linked to a customer’s checking account. It works just like a credit card—but with no interchange fees, the cost per transaction is lower. The lower transaction fees can quickly add up to significant overall savings.  

This is where loyalty and payments complement each other so perfectly. They both exist to help you build brand relationships and drive positive customer behavior, leading to higher profit margins. 

Loyalty members visit more often and spend more per visit. Private label debit customers also visit more often and spend more per visit.  

What’s the recipe for success? 

When you combine loyalty and private label debit for fuel and convenience retail, the success metrics are even higher. 

The model for private label debit savings is rather simple. The more transactions you process, the more savings you realize. You can then reallocate these savings to fund more attractive loyalty offers (for example, 3¢/gal). 

By offering additional incentives (for example, +2¢/gal) for loyalty customers who are also using your payment solution (card and/or mobile), you’re enhancing the overall value proposition. In turn, that builds customer loyalty and increases your payment transactions.  

Once you’ve fully integrated your payment solution with your loyalty program, you and your customers see everything as one cohesive program. This creates synergies for marketing, site execution, training, reporting, management…everything, really. 

Better together is the smart choice 

The next time you make a sandwich, will you opt for an all-peanut butter sandwich or an all-jelly sandwich? Or are you going for the “better together” option that most of us would choose? 

The same applies to your loyalty and payment programs. They’re each good on their own. Together, they can be awesome! 

Take control of your customer data and start building deeper relationships through personalized, customer-centric experiences with PDI Loyalty solutions.  

Discover how payment-driven loyalty programs incentivize your highest-value customers to spend more with PDI Payment solutions. 

¹ 2023 Convenience Store News Realities of the Aisle Study
² PDI Technologies, Inc. 
³ PDI Tracking Convenience Report, March 2023 

We Could Make a Good Combo

Discover the advantages of PDI loyalty and payment solutions.

Explore Now

Tax season can be a daunting time for businesses, especially in the convenience ecosystem where transactions are frequent and varied. However, this time doesn’t have to be synonymous with stress.

With deadlines looming and regulations evolving, it’s important to stay ahead of the game. By being proactive and staying informed, you can streamline your tax filing process and avoid last-minute scrambles.

To help you prepare, here are a few best-practice accounting tips for 2024, aimed at reducing hassle and ensuring timely filing with the IRS.

1. Simplify the process

Here are a few tips to streamline filing:

• Verify 1099 requirements: Identify which vendors and customers will require 1099 forms and ensure their relevant tax information is accurately recorded in PDI Enterprise.
• Stay up to date: Regularly check the IRS website for any updates or changes that could impact your business. This proactive approach helps ensure you’re always aware of any regulatory shifts.
• Upgrade your software: Upgrade to the Year End version of PDI Enterprise as soon as it’s available, typically toward the end of November or early December. This version is tailored for year-end processes, making tax filing smoother.

2. Create a backup plan

Don’t leave anything to chance and make sure you’ve considered multiple scenarios:

• Prepare for extensions: In case of unforeseen circumstances, such as turnover in the accounting department, familiarize yourself with alternative options like filing extensions offered by the IRS.
• Utilize the IRIS system: If necessary, utilize the alternate IRS online filing system (IRIS) to upload 1099s. While PDI Enterprise is geared toward e-filing with the FIRE system, IRIS provides a backup option for manual entry and .csv file importing.
• Update your training and documentation: Ensure you’ve trained multiple team members to file with the IRS and access vital tax information. Consider enrolling in courses like those offered by PDI University to keep everyone’s skills sharp.

3. Learn from experience

One of the most important tips is continuing to build your knowledge base:

• Share lessons learned: Reflect on past filing experiences and share your own insights with your peers on PDI Connections online forums. Collaboration and shared learnings can help improve processes for everyone involved.

Don’t wait to get started

Tax season doesn’t have to be a source of dread. By following these best practices and lessons learned, businesses in the convenience ecosystem can navigate the complexities of tax filing with confidence.

Stay proactive, stay informed, and always have a backup plan—and remember that PDI can help you file correctly and on time.

In the meantime, here are some additional helpful links:

• IRS E-Filing with FIRE System: Information for electronic filing of 1099s
• IRS E-Filing Overview: Alternate filing methods and TCC information
• About Form W-9: Instructions on requesting tax information
• About Form 8809: Instruction on filing for extensions
• About TIN Matching: Resources for using the TIN Matching service

When the unpredictable happens, will your business be prepared? That hypothetical question became reality when Internet services provider AT&T recently experienced a widespread outage throughout the United States.

With thousands of individuals and businesses impacted for up to 12 hours before the outage was resolved, the impact was felt across all regions of the US.

The stakes of the outage were especially high for businesses that rely on AT&T as their primary Internet provider. Without reliable Internet connectivity, most businesses have a difficult time staying up and running without incurring financial loss and customer dissatisfaction.

That’s why it’s increasingly important to have a business continuity plan that can withstand the loss of primary Internet service. In the case of national fast-casual restaurant seafood chain Captain D’s, having an embedded failover solution paid big dividends during the recent outage.

With multiple locations initially impacted by the outage throughout the Midwest, Southeast, and Southwest, Captain D’s was able to keep its restaurants up and running thanks to a fully managed network security solution coupled with 5G as a Service from PDI.

Automatic wireless failover maximizes uptime

When the main Internet connection failed at some Captain D’s locations, the PDI system automatically switched to an alternate network. This high-availability technology is a feature of PDI’s Managed Network Service products, including Firewall as a Service and 5G as a Service.

A robust multi-carrier failover strategy allowed the affected sites to maintain operations despite disruptions in one carrier network.

Similar automatic failover occurred in other enterprises that were using PDI solutions, which not only enhance cybersecurity and simplify PCI compliance but also safeguard against operational downtime and potential loss of revenue.

In the event the primary Internet connection fails, the system seamlessly transitions to an alternate carrier, enabling businesses to continue serving customers, processing transactions, and avoiding income loss due to downtime.

The Captain D’s sites were able to quickly resume operations after discovering the outage, benefiting from the disruption-free business continuity. The network devices, fully managed by PDI, are overseen by security experts who help ensure maximum operational uptime.

Internet outages, while not frequent, are predictable incidents that businesses should be prepared for. With a solid high-availability backup plan and a dedicated security partner, businesses can mitigate such outages before they cause a significant impact.

Discover more about PDI network management and security solutions, or contact us to learn how we can assist in securing and advancing your business.

We asked Brandon Logsdon, President of Consumer Engagement at PDI Technologies, to share his insights on the latest customer engagement trends for 2023. Read on to discover how technology modernization is impacting retail trends and how it can position retailers for success.

Q: Retailers have been talking about personalization for years. What does that mean to you, and what do you expect to change in 2023?

BL: You’re correct that the desire to deliver a more personalized experience is hardly a novel concept. In fact, if you Google “top consumer engagement trends,” you’d likely see personalization on almost every list for the past several years.

For the last decade, convenience retailers have been exploring ways to leverage data to deliver a better customer experience. In 2023, we’ll see an accelerated evolution of personalization if the underlying technology stack can incorporate more effective use of first-party data and automation enabled through artificial intelligence. This powerful technology combination could enable retailers to make the consumer personalization journey much simpler—yet smarter and more impactful over time.

By introducing advanced technologies such as AI and machine learning into the process, you greatly reduce the burden on data analyst professionals. You don’t need to rely on a person to sort through purchase behavior data, then develop that data into segments and cohorts, then load everything into a campaign tool. Automating that process eliminates manual, repetitive tasks and frees up analysts to focus on campaign results and ongoing refinement—with the ultimate benefit of a more personalized experience for your customers.

Q: We’ve seen a steady rise in self-service since the pandemic. Have we reached the peak, or will we continue to see that as an ongoing trend?

BL: Even before the COVID pandemic, the labor market was already extremely tight, and those staffing shortages have only become more pronounced. With those shortages and the rising cost of staffing, expect to see even more investment in self-serve technology throughout all retail channels.

I’d watch for continued growth in kiosk-driven opportunities in physical stores. But kiosks bring up some other challenges and questions. Can you enable shoppers to fulfill an online order in your retail store via a kiosk? Can you add lockers or some type of automated pickup station to fulfill online orders?

Another industry trend to watch in 2023 is the accelerated use of QR codes. Ten years ago, we thought consumers would interact with QR codes at physical stores to activate a digital experience, but adoption never really took off. Today, however, consumers are much more comfortable using QR codes, so there’s a big opportunity to leverage them for self-serve capabilities.

In terms of self-checkout, we’ve seen a lot of investment by Amazon and their shop-and-walk-out technology. Thus far, that technology has been cost-prohibitive for mass adoption across the c-store space, but it’s something to consider if the cost of technology keeps falling.

Another trend is companies like GoSkip that are enabling mobile self-checkout in the physical store environment, which is different than the scan-it-yourself checkout most of us use today. Being able to buy something on your phone while in the store and then walk out with that product is probably the next stage of self-service in the consumer experience. That also solves a big challenge for retailers, because buying something on your phone reduces the front-of-store queueing issue we have with today’s self-checkout stations.

Q: Are there any other retail industry trends that we should watch for?

BL: One trend might be described as “COVID whiplash.” Even though there was an immediate need to build up e-commerce capabilities at the start of the pandemic, there’s strong evidence that some companies over-invested. Now that we’re realizing how many consumers still prefer an in-person shopping experience, some retailers are struggling to keep up.

We’ve seen some fascinating case studies of what not to do. Some retailers had the wrong product mix going into the pandemic, where they weren’t prepared for e-commerce when their stores had to close. They had to scramble to raise their digital game, and they had to dramatically change their product assortment to align with the new purchasing behaviors of pandemic-era consumers.

And then coming out of the pandemic, some retailers have struggled as their stores have reopened, because their stores no longer had the right product assortment for post-pandemic consumer behaviors. Suddenly, they got stuck with a lot of inventory that wasn’t moving fast.

In contrast, the success stories we’ve seen are the retailers that found the right balance between their digital and physical store investments—and the right product mix for each. If you invested in modern technology infrastructure, you’ve probably been able to adapt quickly to these changing market dynamics. If you didn’t invest in digital transformation, you’re already at risk of getting left behind.

Learn more

To learn more about additional 2023 trends, be sure to visit our Trends page.

You can thrive in today’s digital economy. Contact us today to learn how we can help you transform your business.

The future of convenience retail is a digital storefront. PDI brings you the digital commerce solutions you need to deliver the experience consumers are looking for including loyalty, engagement, data-driven insights, and mobile ordering and payments. Hear our experts cover the integrated digital consumer experience.

Engage with consumers more effectively

Hear from PDI and GasBuddy leaders about the latest consumer engagement solutions from PDI. This webinar will help you engage your consumers more effectively with Loyalty, GasBuddy Business Pages, Consumer Engagement services, Private Label Debit, and more.

Convenience stores have notoriously been data deserts for consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers. The best information c-stores have historically been able to offer CPG distributors and manufacturers is weekly sales data by region not at the store level. As a result, c-stores haven’t been at the forefront of CPG brand strategies.

But, new near-real-time transaction data capture and analysis capabilities are changing all that. New tools enable more sophisticated merchandising, promotion, pricing, strategies, and more effective marketing across all channels.

20-20 Foresight

The significance of real-time reporting cannot be overstated. Previously, point-of-sale data has been aggregated to a simple, weekly sales, units, and average price metric and then batched 1 to 2 weeks after the transaction occurred. Not only did this slow responsiveness, but it also made it more difficult for manufacturers to do deeper basket-level or store-level analysis.

This blind spot in understanding c-store basket behaviors has meant millions of dollars in opportunity costs. In addition, the improved velocity and granularity of this data can yield projectible insights faster, empowering manufacturers to optimize strategies. As an example, in the beverage category, many new flavors are being launched with aggressive promotions. Now CPG brands can use these tools to measure the promotion impact, estimate volume per outlet, and identify store performance. And, the opportunities don’t stop there.

One of the biggest areas for optimization for CPG insights is due to the sheer footprint of c-stores. There are over 150,000 c-stores in the United States compared with just 40,000 groceries. This enables a degree of location-specific decisions that groceries simply cannot offer because space does not permit for many excess items.

Product preferences by district and even neighborhood can be identified and analyzed. When this SKU-level data is overlayed with demographics, the insights can be both more detailed and more actionable. This will become increasingly important as the U.S. consumer profile diversifies. These new SKU-level capabilities are game-changers for any company with multiple flavors, sizes, and so forth.

With granular details into purchasing behavior, c-stores and CPGs can drive even more revenue by better identifying related items. C-store purchases tend to be just a few items. For this reason, the correlation between product selection is clearer. This can inform decisions about bundling, cross-promotions, and other tactics to drive incremental revenue. A one-item increase in a convenience retail transaction can equate to 20 to 40% more revenue per basket.

Shelving Your Impulses

Consumer behavior in c-stores has historically been treated as fundamentally different from other channels. C-stores are considered impulse purchase outlets. As a result, c-store consumer data hasn’t necessarily been factored into brands’ larger marketing strategies. But, studies by Unravel Research discovered that 62% of in-store purchase decisions are made on impulse. This includes choices like brand and the influence of factors like displays, pricing, and packaging.

As convenience stores broaden their range of merchandise, they may be considered more a food destination than yesterday’s cigarette kiosk. This means many conventional diagnostics regarding bundling, sniping, and other sales drivers can be applied across all of a brand’s channels. This is especially true for bundles or themed promotions. Such tactics tend to be easier to deploy in c-stores. In addition to driving more volume through that channel, the new data capabilities can provide better insights about what worked and what didn’t to help quantify the ROI. This can inform the decision if and how to roll out a program more widely.

In those cases where promotions include brand partnerships, access to such detailed and actionable data can help motivate participation by prospective partners. In addition to building a supporting case for joint promotions before the fact, the promise of such granular insights for promotion partners after the fact can be a powerful motivator.

For CPG programs that need to launch “grocery-first” access to the c-store data means that channel can provide a measurable overlay to such programs. Not only does this enable the ROI detail mentioned above, but it allows for analysis of the marginal contributions by each channel in any overall lift. Here, too, the ability to compare and contrast results between geographies can be a powerful tool in the marketing kit.

Ah, Now I C!

The new real-time visibility into c-store sales performance and consumer behavior through tools such as PDI Insights Cloud gives CPG manufacturers a whole new way to refine their product mix, optimize their marketing activities, and even tweak their strategies. These learnings can be applied to maximize revenue through the c-store channel and to increase revenue through groceries and big boxes too.

What used to be a blind spot in the retail landscape is now a bright spot. And, it has CPG manufacturers seeing dollar signs. To get there, visit https://www.pditechnologies.com/insights-analytics/

This content originally appeared in “Food Logistics.”