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Comment by ahoy | Hacker News Reader

The appeal of cigs/junkfood/etc is obvious. No one enjoys the autoplaying video ads at the gas pump.

A tangent, but what i still can't believe is that at gas stations like WaWa or Royal Farms that have made-to-order food inside, why can't you order the food at the screen on the pump (and pay for it!), to pick it up inside after you're done pumping? I keep expecting this to be a thing, haven't seen it yet.

The screen isn't there for your benefit. It's for the ads.

Don't they want to sell me food though?

Possibly yes, possibly no. It depends a lot on the margins. I wouldn't be surprised if food is a loss leader to get you in the door to make other higher-margin impulse purchases. In that case, letting you order food at the pump is an anti-goal because you'll complete the transaction before you're surrounded by other impulse buys.

It isn’t like that at Wawa. The reason they don’t take your food order from the gas station screen is because presumably they would have to serve you at the gas pump, which is not something they will do. You can just use the app to order if you want.

They also won’t bring your online/app order to the gas pump, you have to be parked in a regular spot.

There’s also the concern of updating the menu on the gas pump which (for Wawa) is a non-trivial problem.

My guess is they want people to leave the pump and park elsewhere in the lot before getting food, to free up the pump for somebody else buying gas. For many people, ordering food is painfully slow and indecisive affair so it probably makes sense to move it away from the pumps.

This actually seems like a good idea. Show the ad but have a “place order” button on the screen. They’ve already got your credit card information…

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