Tatarstan Tech Vendor Launches Expansion Into Gas Stations

Every facet of retail automation

One of the main attractions at the ICL Group's stand during Kazan Digital Week 2025 was the ICL.Retail ecosystem. It’s a comprehensive suite of IT solutions for the retail, fuel, and service sectors. ICL Services has been developing this software ecosystem for stores, gas station chains, and quick-service restaurants since 2007. To date, the system has been installed in more than 4,500 locations across Russia.

Through these solutions, ICL Services helps clients strengthen their competitive advantage while enhancing customer experience. Clients receive a full range of solutions, including:

• - POS Software — a suite that automates retail and service business processes, featuring ICL.Server for managing distributed retail networks and ICL.POS for automating in-store and online point-of-sale operations. Modules such as ICL.Café meet the needs of fast-food chains, while ICL.Fashion is tailored for apparel retailers. One of the company's fastest-growing products today is ICL.Fuel, a module that manages fuel sales, tank operations, and tanker unloading.
• - Proprietary hardware for both traditional and self-checkout registers — an essential element of any modern retail store.
• - Ready-to-use digital solutions in data analytics, AI, and IoT to help retailers cut costs, boost sales, and improve the customer experience. For instance, the ICL.ERP app handles warehouse inventory management and price list generation. ICL.Analyst generates detailed reporting, while the ICL.Loyalty system helps businesses retain customers through integrated discounts, promotional tools, and seamless connections with major loyalty-management platforms.
• - Reliable technical support — offering a full cycle of turnkey IT services, from migration planning for retail chains or gas stations to 24/7 post-launch support.

The ecosystem enables product data management and inventory tracking, efficient staff coordination at every retail location, and improved customer interaction control. It also includes modules for selling labeled and excise goods, plus a flexible, regularly updated reporting database.

"Traditional gas stations are quickly turning into real retail stores"

Particular emphasis has been placed on applying ICL.Retail solutions within gas station networks. After all, gas stations today are no longer just about gasoline and diesel. Customers come here to buy convenience goods, grab coffee or snacks, and take a break. Gas stations are rapidly transforming into full-scale retail spaces featuring multi-purpose service zones. Both national and regional operators are actively opening such locations. In terms of size and product variety, many gas stations now rival large supermarkets — making digitalization and automation absolutely essential.

Galina Musina, Head of Retail Solutions and Services at ICL Services, explains:

"Our solutions manage sales equally effectively for hypermarkets, cafés, quick-service restaurants — and, of course, gas stations. For many gas station chains, ancillary goods and services generate very high margins. In the long term — by 2030 — fuel sales will account for only about 30% of total revenue at such stations. The remaining 70% will come from non-fuel retail sales. It's a global trend — and a justified one. Traditional gas stations are quickly evolving into fully fledged retail stores."

Musina sees the roots of this trend in the fact that, in today's age of on-demand delivery, gas stations remain one of the few retail sectors people still have to visit in person. That means there's a unique opportunity to sell products directly on-site. The retailer's task is to make each sale as convenient, seamless, and fast as possible — both for the cashier and for the customer.

ICL.Retail software is designed precisely to enable the next generation of gas stations. It turns highway fuel stops into full-fledged forecourts where customers can buy food, beverages, essentials, and access a range of extra services.

The gas station management system provides complete control over fuel sales, automates checkout and self-service areas, and enables effective inventory, sales, and customer behavior management. The intuitive, user-friendly ICL.Retail interface helps speed up customer service and makes employee training significantly faster.

"Cash register builder," freshness check, and a test to see what kind of shoplifter you'd be

To automate sales at gas stations — or any other retail network — several types of POS equipment are available.

First, there's traditional POS software that can run on virtually any hardware platform. ICL manufactures its own POS terminals, but its software can also be installed on previously purchased equipment.

"That's one of our key advantages — our software can be installed on any hardware, with no need to buy new devices. One of our major retail clients is still running our software on hardware that's been in stores for over ten years! We're also OS-agnostic — our software runs perfectly on both Windows and Linux, including the server and POS components," Musina notes.

The POS interface can be customized to meet specific business needs: modules are added from a wide library of applications, like building blocks. For example, at a gas station, the interface can include not only convenience goods but also a dedicated fuel dispensing module. This is extremely convenient for cashiers — everything they need is on one screen, eliminating the need to switch between multiple POS systems. Currently, it's common for gas stations to use separate systems — one for food service and another for fuel and retail items. Here, everything — including fuel dispensing control — is integrated into a single POS module.

Feature access can be easily managed through configuration settings. The entire interface is intuitive, allowing cashiers to learn the system with minimal effort. Incidentally, the layout of on-screen blocks is completely customizable. When ICL.Retail is implemented in large retail chains, clients often request that the new interface resemble their previous layout as closely as possible. This helps cashiers adapt and complete training much faster.

"Plus, everything feeds into a single back-office and accounting system. All operations are fully transparent, allowing us to perform complete sales analytics. Everything is aggregated as efficiently as possible in our backend," Musina adds.

The second option is self-service checkouts, featuring a highly user-friendly interface that even first-time customers can use effortlessly. The system won't allow scanning expired products, and it seamlessly handles labeled goods. The ICL stand was also very lively because visitors were testing themselves to see if they could develop quick shoplifting skills. At the self-checkout, one could try to take an item off the shelf without scanning it at the register. No one succeeded.

"ICL.Retail for self-checkout registers integrates the AiSee video analytics platform. The cameras monitor what we put in the basket. If something isn't scanned or paid for, AiSee identifies the unusual behavior, and the register won't allow the purchase to be completed. It can prompt the customer to rescan items, call an assistant to check what's happening, and notify the security staff," explains Galina Musina.

That's why the solutions in the ICL.Retail family are combined into an ecosystem: they all integrate seamlessly with each other. Video analytics linked to the POS software is just one example. The product continues to evolve.

"We started with regular grocery retail. Now, with extensive experience, we offer solutions for gas stations and their networks as well. These are POS solutions that have grown out of high-volume grocery retail. We've been able to enhance them with the functionality required by modern points of sale, whether it's a supermarket or a gas station. As a result, we now have a high-performance register capable of selling all types of products, including fuel. If necessary, we can also introduce new services," says Galina Musina.

No limits on integration or architecture

ICL's top manager emphasizes that the solution easily integrates with other systems through specially developed APIs.

Moreover, ICL does not restrict clients in choosing the implementation architecture. It's not necessary to have servers at every gas station in the network. The solution can operate efficiently in a cloud environment, whether in a private cloud or on a server at the client's office, which the registers at the gas stations will access for data.

"Hybrid formats are also possible — where some gas stations in the same network are very large (and are necessarily equipped with servers), while others are small and operate remotely via the cloud. They can even function without a direct connection to the server! Data synchronizes once the connection is restored. One of our clients had firsthand experience proving that a register can operate like this for a whole month," explains Galina Musina, highlighting real-world challenges.

The registers support all payment options, which can also be configured as modules from the extensive interface menu. These include bank cards, fuel cards, loyalty points, cash, QR codes, and all other legal payment methods in Russia.

The company plans to further expand functionality: increasing the variety of POS modules so that gas stations can sell a wider range of products and services — for example, setting up a laundry or pharmacy.

For a client's gas station network to fully switch to the new software (or software plus hardware), a migration project is required, which takes from a couple of months up to six months to develop and implement. ICL has accumulated such extensive experience in integrating and deploying new software solutions that it is now embedded in its DNA.

ICL Services also provides a full range of ongoing support: technical assistance, equipment warranties, and a 24/7 call center for clients. After all, if a register breaks down in the middle of the night somewhere in Siberia, someone must always be ready to help.

Thus, ICL Services, one of the leading integrators and vendors of its own products, once again proves that automating Russian businesses with Russian software and hardware is achievable. Modern domestic systems provide a full spectrum of business solutions that meet trends, client needs, and security requirements — including in the fuel and energy sector.

Lyudmila Gubayeva
Source: Realnoe Vremya