Originally Posted by
stut
I don't think it's the delivery that's difficult (give enough of an incentive and people will queue round the block to use it - witness my local Asda and its cheap fuel) but rather the lure of the perennially eclectic stock of the petrol station shop. Why simply fill up with your card, when you can pick up a pint of milk, a bottle of fizzy water, an e-cigarette refill, a Ginsters pasty*, some screen wash, a bag of charcoal briquettes, a can of deicing fluid and, on special offer this week, a 12V hand warmer? Oh, and a tin of those boiled sweets dusted in icing sugar.
Ah, it is the service station equivalent of the going-through-a-maze-of-shops to reach your gate at airports with the aim of generating impulse buys , then? As someone who almost never buy anything in either airport shops or petrol stations, I am largely impervious to that so had not appreciated that angle.