The Vice President of Marketing of OKKO, the leading network of filling stations in Ukraine, spoke about the new OKKO Drive service, why they decided to develop this area, its key features and development prospects.
— A new OKKO Drive service has appeared at gas stations. What is the purpose of the new service? How did the idea for the launch come about?
— When our clients fill up with fuel, in most cases they also buy drinks or food at the filling station. We would probably buy more often, because our food is tasty and varied. But modern man wants to use his time effectively. And if there is no need to refuel, then not everyone will specifically drive in, park, enter the sales area, or perhaps wait in line. Now that OKKO Drive is available, you don’t need to do all this. I drove up, ordered, picked up – in a matter of minutes.
Currently OKKO Drive is operating as a pilot project, but we are striving to quickly scale it up because we believe in its success. There are all the prerequisites for this. Firstly, a tasty and high-quality product. We definitely won’t let you down with this, because we have our own food production and are confident in the quality of preparation, storage and transportation of dishes and ingredients. Secondly, we have good coverage throughout the country, a clear and convenient location for drivers. And, in fact, thirdly, we know how to serve quickly, because we value the client’s time.
— What are your plans regarding the geographic expansion of OKKO Drive?
— We chose Lviv as the first city to launch the service. And for the service to gain popularity, we intend to cover most of the city’s gas stations with it. So the plan by the end of the year is to launch OKKO Drive at about a dozen gas stations.
Then we will go to other cities – to regional centers, then, perhaps, to large regional ones. The global goal is to install Drive at 70-80% of our filling stations in big cities. In terms of the entire network, this is 40-50% of the total number of gas stations. Ideally, we would like it to be 100%, but there are objects where it is not so easy to integrate Drive, and we understand this.
— Will the mechanics of work and assortment be the same everywhere on OKKO Drive?
— If we talk about the format, it is the same everywhere – there is an order counter and a calculation capsule, delivery, integrated into the trading floor. There may be slight differences regarding the assortment. For example, if we introduce a new product to the menu, it may appear at one gas station earlier, at another – later. Also, the assortment of stores may differ slightly: in larger complexes it is correspondingly wider. But the basic dishes, those that our customers have long known and loved, will be everywhere. And everyone can get them in 3-5 minutes.
— How long did it take to launch this project? What was the most difficult thing?
— Almost a year passed from approval of the project to its implementation. And it was a year of intense work, because many different divisions of the company were involved in the process – builders, designers, marketing, the non-fuel sales team, the operations department, and IT. The most difficult thing, perhaps, was to integrate the new module into the existing gas station infrastructure. So that it does not interfere with traffic, is at the same time visible to the client, and is in harmony with the architecture and appearance of the complex as a whole. Since our filling stations are all different, we need to look for an individual solution for each one.
— In 2024 alone, the company plans to invest 1.8 million USD in the new service. In the future, the volume of investment will increase accordingly. What payback period do you expect?
— The payback period for one module, according to our calculations, is 3-4 years. We can achieve this if we increase non-fuel sales at filling stations by 10%. The work of the first modules shows that this goal is achievable.
Moreover, we are not starting from scratch. We already have a large audience of our clients. Thus, today more than 9.5 million Ukrainians are participants in our Fishka loyalty program. Most of them buy not only fuel at OKKO, but also coffee, hot dogs and other delicious dishes. We can communicate directly with this audience and offer them what they love in a new convenient format.
— Is it possible to say that in the future you will be a competitor to McDonald’s in this service?
— I wouldn’t call it competition. OKKO has its own way, McDonald's has its own. We have a different menu and, I think, different niches. We, first of all, focus on our clients and actually create this market for ourselves.
— Do you think other gas station chains will open something like Drive?
— I wouldn’t be surprised, but this is about catching up. Our strategy is to be a trendsetter in the market and to be ahead.
