It would be another two years before another opens, and the first purpose built filling station, with store for associated products opened in 1913. When the traditional forecourt began, the focus was purely on the sale of fossil fuels and lubricants. Land was purchased with that in mind, and over the 1900s, as the numbers grew, the focus remained on fossil fuels.

Southland Ice Company, which later is renamed based on their opening hours, 7-11, opens the world’s first Convenience Store. It doesn’t sell fuel. In fact, by the early 1970s, only 6% of all convenience stores sell fuel.

The more forecourts expanded, the more legislation was brought in, especially when the environment needed to be considered. Land became more expensive, and various crises over the years led to fluctuations in oil prices, which had a knock-on effect on sales. Retailers began trialing self-service fuel sales, pushing for legislation to allow self-filling.

In the 1970s, more and more consumers began to feel the pinch, and demanded more fuel efficient cars. For fuel retailers, this meant a dynamic was beginning to shift. They needed to stay on top of the game and make sure margins stayed up. This meant investing in the convenience store. This was the advent of the fuel/c-store mix.

By the year 2000, the developed world had well and truly embraced the convenience store, and in the US, fast-food was a staple part of any good c-store offering. Quick-Service Restaurants (QSR) were moving into European forecourts too, as fuel margins began to slip. Add to that the rise of supermarket forecourts and the price wars with them, and retailers needed to move faster to stay on top.

Come 2008, and the environment was on everyone’s lips, for better or for worse. Hybrid cars were disrupting the industry, and a new player called Tesla was threatening to change the world. On top of that, a mix of the 2008 financial crisis, and a new type of consumer, meant that traditional points-based loyalty was dying rapidly, in favour of targeted customer intimacy. This was the beginning of the age of customer-centricity. Whilst retailers scrambled to understand what this meant, looking at self-service, looking towards cloud technologies, and cost savings, A2i was looking elsewhere – artificial intelligence.

In 2011, when A2i and OK set out their vision for artificial intelligence for fuel pricing, other retailers were not really considering the benefit of it. Many retailers challenged the notion that electric vehicles would be a disrupter, and there still was little government legislation to suggest fossil fuels would go anywhere soon. However, a few retailers were beginning to open their eyes to new technologies. The era of cloud retail was upon us.

Over the next ten years though, things moved blisteringly fast. Governments began to set sunset dates on fossil fuel car sales; tax incentives arrived in many countries for electric cars, especially Scandinavian countries; and cars became increasingly fuel efficient, with the likes of TSI motors and better hybrid models arriving. By 2020, retailers began trying to address the c-store; could selling more coffee and food allow them to reach 50% of their sales revenue indoors?