Payoff Reads · EV chargers

Are the chargers adding retail sales, or just selling electricity?

Find out what your chargers add to retail sales at every site — the line your charging business case currently books at zero — and what that does to payback. Each charger store is read vs. a twin built from stores without chargers that sold just like it before the chargers were installed. The twin goes through the same weather, gas prices and local events, so the gap between the store and its twin is the chargers' effect alone.

5 Significant lift
2 No significant effect
1 Significant drop

Heartland Markets is a fictional chain. Every number on this page is made up to show the format.

What your numbers can't show

Your sales reports can't see what the chargers add. It's smaller than a normal week's ups and downs.

What you have: retail sales by store and week, and session counts from your charging network.
What it can't show: which retail sales the chargers brought in. Charging customers don't identify themselves at the register, and the chargers' effect is small next to a store's normal swings: at Store 9 in the sample below, they add $29 a day, while a normal week swings $310 a day.
What the read shows: what the chargers add to retail sales at every site, per day and per charging session, and what that does to payback once the retail line is counted. Every read comes with the levers proven to raise charger-to-store sales at other sites, ranked for each of yours, and monitoring that tracks each one once it's in.

A charging session and a store receipt sit in 2 different companies' systems: the network holds the session, and your POS holds the basket. Nothing in one points to the other, so the read compares stores instead of following drivers. It needs no app, no loyalty scan and no camera.

Watch a charger site get read

Silent film: how a read counts the retail sales chargers bring in.

What lands on your desk

A charger rollout, as Seurat reads it

Heartland Markets put 4 fast-charging stalls at 8 of its 42 stores between March 2024 and June 2025, as each site's power upgrade came through. Each charger store was read vs. a twin built from stores without chargers that sold just like it before the chargers were installed. A before-and-after would credit the chargers with everything else that changed around the store that year, from road work to a new competitor. The twin goes through all of it too, so only the chargers' effect is left. Every EV read also comes with the levers that raised retail sales at other charger sites, ranked for each of your sites, and monitoring that tracks each lever once it's in, so a small number comes with a way to grow it.

The answer, in three lines:

Chargers bring customers inside: +3.6 visits a day at the average charger store, about 4 in every 10 charging sessions, and that's statistically significant.
They add $29 a day to retail sales, about $10,600 a year, or $3.20 for every charging session. Store 9, the store in the film, is the typical one.
Counting that retail line, a 4-stall site pays back in 7.8 years instead of 9.1. At 1 store, the chargers cost sales: they took the parking spaces by the door.

per charger store, per day, vs. stores without chargers

What changed	Result	Verdict
Charging sessions	9	Counted by the network
Inside visits	+3.6	Significant lift
Retail sales	+$29	Significant lift
Gross profit on the added sales	+$14.50	Significant lift
Retail sales per charging session	+$3.20	Significant lift

The business case: at $29 a day, the retail line is worth about $10,600 a year in sales and $5,300 in gross profit. On roughly $300,000 of net capex for a 4-stall site, that takes payback from 9.1 years on electricity alone to 7.8.

Why the weekly report missed it: a normal week swings $310 a day at Store 9, about 10 times what the chargers add. The read finds it by reading only what charging customers buy, in the hours they charge, across thousands of store-days.

By store type: chargers add the most at the 2 highway stores, where drivers on long trips charge longer and buy food. At the 6 town stores, most sessions are short top-ups by locals.

by store type, per charger store per day

Store type	Retail sales added	Confidence band	Verdict
2 highway stores	+$74		Significant lift
The 6 town stores	+$14		Significant lift

store by store (6 of 8)

Store	Chargers since	Retail sales added, per day	Verdict
Store 40, Hwy 151	Mar 2024	+$80	Significant lift
Store 34, Hwy 965	Jun 2024	+$67	Significant lift
Store 9, Boyson Rd	Sep 2024	+$29	Significant lift
Store 31, Cedar St	Jan 2025	+$14	No significant effect
Store 17, Linn St	Mar 2025	+$5	No significant effect
Store 4, Lincoln Way	Jun 2025	−$22	Significant drop

Store 4: the 4 stalls took 4 of the 10 parking spaces by the door. Quick stops for coffee and snacks fell by more than charging customers added.

What would grow it: 3 levers that raised retail sales at other charger sites, each measured there and adjusted to Store 9's traffic, layout and session lengths: a coffee offer on the charger screen, signs from the charger to the door and seating with a view of the chargers. Together they'd take Store 9 to about $120 a day, somewhere between $90 and $150, and payback to about 6 years instead of 9. Monitoring then tracks each lever week by week, so you see which ones are working at your stores.

KeepFixWhat to do: keep the chargers, and add the 3 levers at the town stores, starting with Store 9, with monitoring on each. Fix Store 4 by making the 2 spaces nearest the door 10-minute parking. Price the next site's retail line at $3.20 a session.

The confidence band shows the 95% confidence interval. When the band spans zero, the result isn't statistically significant. Heartland Markets is a fictional chain. Every number on this page is made up to show the format.

How the read works

Chargers open site by site, as each power upgrade comes through, so on any given day most of your stores don't have them. Those stores show what each charger store would have sold without chargers.

Give each charger store a twin: a predicted line of daily sales, built from stores without chargers that sold just like it for a year or more before the chargers were installed.
Read what charging customers buy. The read looks at the categories charging customers buy, in the hours sessions happen, so a few dollars a day are measured on a base a third the size of the whole store.
Use the days the plugs were down. On days the chargers were broken or switched off, the same store becomes its own comparison, and nothing about the store can explain the difference.
Put a price on it, and check it. Each line is valued at your margins and turned into dollars per session. Each twin has to have tracked its store closely before the install. A placebo test then reruns the read on stores with no chargers, on made-up install dates: with nothing to find, it should show no effect. If it shows an effect, the read isn't working properly, and we tell you.

Can your chargers be read?

It depends on when the chargers opened and what your data keeps, more than on how many stores you run. There are 3 routes.

1
Chargers already open at some stores
How the read works
Each charger store vs. a twin built from stores without chargers
What it answers
What the chargers add to retail sales, per day and per session
2
Chargers opening soon
How the read works
We set up the read before they open: the comparison stores, the opening date to log and the detection floor
What it answers
A first verdict about 3 months after opening, and the retail line for your next business case
3
Plugs that go down
How the read works
The same store on days the plugs worked vs. days they didn't
What it answers
A 2nd read that nothing about the store can explain

We check your install dates and plug uptime on the first call, before you commit to anything.

Scope this read

What we need, and what stays with you

We need:

Daily sales by store, split into food, drinks, packaged food and snacks, and everything else
Transactions by store and hour, with and without fuel
The date each charger went live, and the days any plug was down, if your network or charger dashboard keeps them
Charging sessions by site and day
Your margins by category, as percentages
1 to 2 years of history from before the chargers opened

We never ask for:

Driver names, plate numbers or anything else that identifies a driver
Card numbers or payment data
Session records for individual drivers

How we handle your data →

How long it takes

About 2 weeks from the day your data lands, then a 60-minute readout with whoever needs to hear it. If the chargers haven't opened yet, we set up the read now, and the first verdict comes about 3 months after they open.
We scope it to your chain on a short call: which sites, which install dates, which network.

Scope this read Book a call

Questions buyers ask us

Can't the charging network tell us which drivers came inside? Not reliably. The network holds the session, the payment processor holds the transaction and your POS holds the basket, and none of them point to each other. Loyalty scans catch only members, and only when they remember. The read compares stores instead, so it counts every customer who walks in.
Is $29 a day worth measuring? On a $5,000 day it's 0.6%, which is why reports miss it. Over a year it's about $10,600 of retail sales per site, and it takes payback from 9.1 years to 7.8.
What can we do about a low number? Grow it. Every read comes with the levers that raised retail sales at other charger sites, ranked by what each would add at each of your sites: an offer on the charger screen, signs from the charger to the door and somewhere to sit, among others. At Store 9 in the sample, 3 of them would take $29 a day to about $120.
How do we track the improvements you recommend? With monitoring. Once a lever is in, each site is read week by week vs. its twin, so you see whether charger-to-store sales are rising, which lever is doing it, and where one isn't being run the way it was specified.
Does it matter whether we own the chargers or host them for a network? No. The read measures the store, not the chargers, so it works either way, including at leased sites where you can't see the sessions.
Our chargers opened recently. Is there enough data? Often, if your sites are above the detection floor: daily data, the hours sessions happen and the days plugs were down all add evidence. The Detection Floor Check tells you before anyone spends money.
What if the read shows the chargers add nothing? A read with no significant lift is a private finding. You see every result first, and nothing goes anywhere without your approval.
Do we have to connect any systems? No. One export from your back-office system, plus your charger dashboard's session counts, sent however your IT team prefers.
Who does the work? We do. Your team runs the export, shares it with us, and comes back to hear our readout.

After this read

See the levers proven at other charger sites, ranked for each of yours.

See the EV Lever Board →How monitoring works →Check the detection floor →