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If Mobil customers love paying for their gas by waving a Mobil Speedpass tag at the pump—and so far they do, to the tune of 4 million users—will they also love paying for Mobil Mart convenience store purchases using the same radio-frequency-based device?

Mobil evidently thinks so, and is planning a national rollout of indoor Speedpass readers this month, encouraged by the success of a one-year-old pilot program in St. Louis.

Introduced in 1997, Speedpass was designed for outdoor pay-at-the-pump use only, in response to research that told them customers wanted one thing above all else from their gas-buying experience: to get it over with. Speedpass comes in two styles—a compact-size car tag attached to the car's rear window, or a miniature key tag that customers can wave at the pump. The latter style is the one that's been coded for indoor use. Inside participating Mobil Marts, cashiers are outfitted with Speedpass readers that enable customers to pick out the sundries of their choice, place the Speedpass in the reader, take a receipt, and go—with the purchase appearing on the customer's next credit or debit card statement.

According to Jim Buckler, marketing strategy manager for Texas Instruments (which co-developed the Speedpass technology with Mobil and with the Wayne Division of Dresser Industries), Speedpass authenticates a transaction in four seconds. Modeled on radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, Speedpass contains a miniature transponder with a microchip, which is read by a close-range radio frequency signal within several hundred milliseconds. The chip sends out a customer's unique ID number back to the reader, while the credit or debit card number remains outside the Speedpass system in order to maintain the confidentiality of that data.

Seventy Mobil Mart stores—franchised by distributor Wallis Oil in the St. Louis region—participated in the pilot program for the indoor application. "People were favorable in St. Louis," says Mobil spokeswoman Susan Carter. "It's a natural extension of the [Speedpass] product. The appeal to consumers is that it makes things simpler and easier, and the cashier doesn't have to do as much—they don't have to scan credit cards or make change."

The appeal of the outdoor Speedpass is obvious—besides the speed factor, customers can pay for their gas without having to leave their cars or take out their wallets in questionable neighborhoods. In fact, other oil companies, such as Shell, are bringing out pay-at-the-pump devices similar to the Mobil Speedpass, after noting the latter's success. But what's the appeal or advantage to the customer of being able to use a Speedpass to pay for chips and sodas indoors, as opposed to using a regular debit or credit card? In other words, how much time does it really save?

Although Mobil doesn't have any data on exactly how much time is saved by using Speedpass—as opposed to paying with a debit card, credit card or cash—Carter says the company did a study of how many steps there were during an average transaction. The company found that "Speedpass cut out a lot of steps. You don't have to insert a card or PIN number; you don't even have to have your wallet with you. But everybody does things differently and moves at a different pace, so it's hard to tell exactly how much time is saved." She also cites the security and protection afforded by Speedpass—there's a limit on the number of Speedpass purchases a customer can make per day, in order to guard against theft, and since no credit card is ever displayed, no one can steal the card number.

Mobil expects the indoor Speedpass program to be fully rolled out by late summer 2000. "We're real excited about it," says Texas Instrument's Buckler. "The feedback from people testing it indicates that the loyalty gain has given Mobil a good return on investment."