Kelly's Fuel Mart: 4% sales increase and 65% ROI

Growing customer base and profits

Kelly Express Mart, a single-site dealer in Detroit, Michigan, saw costs rising and wanted to grow their customer base to increase profits and offset those rising costs.  They defined success as attracting new customers, while also incentivizing existing customers to make more in-store purchases.

Attracting new customers and driving behavioral change

In June 2019, Kelly's Fuel Mart partnered with Upside to gain access to Upside’s large customer base and behavior-changing promotions, profitably providing customers with more value both at the pump and in the c-store.

To attract new customers, Upside: 

• Identified the consumers that were buying fuel from nearby competitors but had never transacted with the retailer  
• Drove those transactions to Kelly's Fuel Mart 

• Exposing those customers to the retailer’s loyalty program 

To drive behavior change among existing or “regular” customers, Upside 

• Identified Kelly's Fuel Mart’s “regular” customers and how much they were buying
• Increased the visit frequency and total spend those customers made with the retailer

4% increase in sales and customer loyalty

The partnership with Upside resulted in remarkable growth for Kelly Express Mart. Upside drove a 4% increase in sales, which came out to 117,000 incremental gallons on-site and a net profit of $13,000, with a 65% return on investment.

Among existing customers specifically, they spent 1.5x more per trip after joining Upside.

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Imad Khalil, President of Kelly's Fuel Mart, praised Upside for its effectiveness and shared vision. He said, "Upside does a tremendous job of seeing the vision we have as business owners. If we aren’t making any money, neither are they. They’re not charging us monthly memberships, subscription fees, anything like that. And we’re guaranteed to make a certain percent profit.”