The Safeway gas bar in Terrace has been sold to Shell, ending what has been a years-long offering of coupons encouraging people to shop at both the gas bar and adjacent Safeway grocery store.
Grocery store shoppers received a coupon to reduce the price of fuel at the gas bar where they would then receive a coupon to reduce the cost of their next grocery store visit in a closed loop consumer incentive.
The Safeway store stopped issuing gas coupons at the end of July, but in an email said it will honour coupons issued in July by the gas bar for 60 days.
Safeway did, for the month of July, double the value of coupons issued by the grocery store so that a coupon worth four cents off for a litre of fuel had a value of eight cents a litre.
The sale announcement was first made last December whereby Canada Mobility Services, a subsidiary of Shell Canada, said it was buying 56 gas bars in western Canada and Ontario from the Empire Company Ltd. which owns the Safeway chain through subsidiary Sobeys.
A Shell executive at the time linked the sale to the company’s plan to shift away from standard fuels.
“These 56 locations will provide opportunities to offer customers expanded fueling options (including Shell Recharge electric vehicle charging, hydrogen and lower-carbon premium fuels) and enable growth of non-fuel sales through an enhanced convenience retail offering,” said Kent Martin.
This is the second time Safeway/Sobeys has ended a consumer incentive program. The first was just over a year ago when it left the Air Miles points program in favour of Scene+, a program it owns with other companies.
But customers of the gas bar are now being reacquainted with Air Miles because it is Shell’s preferred customer loyalty program.
There is no word yet on when Shell will replace Safeway gas bar signage with its own.