The Car Park Is Becoming Retail’s Next Customer Battleground

The Electric Vehicle Council released its State of EVs report at the end of September 2026 which found that Australians are now buying one EV every 100 seconds. However, there are only 4,268 public charging locations to service the 612,000 electric cars on the roads.

At the same time, recent research from Kempower found that 62% of Australians want public chargers at shopping centres, while more than half of Australian EV drivers are more likely to choose a grocery or retail venue if convenient charging is available.

For retailers, EV charging could become a significant competitive advantage. The ability to charge while shopping can influence where people choose to spend their time and money, creating new opportunities to attract customers, increase dwell time and build loyalty. But capturing that opportunity requires more than installing chargers. It demands a deliberate approach, with infrastructure designed around customer behaviour, site constraints and long-term demand.

Using EV charging to bring in more customers

EV charging becomes an influence on where people shop when it becomes a part of the customer experience journey. Where chargers are easy to find, simple to use and consistently available so that visiting a location becomes part of their regular shopping routine.

When charging becomes part of the shopping experience, retailers become not just a convenience option but also a preferred destination.

Design charging as a customer experience

Starting on your EV charging journey means figuring out where to place chargers to create a positive customer experience starts with understanding how customers already use the venue. A quick trip to the grocery story or stop for coffee has a very different dwell time (how long a vehicle remains parked while charging) than doing the big weekly shop. 

Then consider the physical footprint. Compact charging dispensers and distributed systems (user-facing chargers that can be more easily installed in tight spaces) can help integrate equipment into existing car parks while limiting layout changes and the loss of parking bays.

But charging design goes beyond location it’s also about how people will use it. Design capacity (how many people will charge their EVs) should be based on your customers everyday uses, rather than building the system around occasional peaks (when more people than usual will use the charger). This creates a more practical starting point while preserving the ability to increase capacity as utilisation grows. 

Be smart about power usage

Next is making sure that there is enough power to support them.

While you might be tempted to install as many charging points as possible, the biggest constraint is how efficiently that power can be distributed across the site. Without careful planning, retailers can find themselves limited by electrical capacity long before they run out of parking bays.

That's why retailers need to think of charging as a connected system rather than a collection of individual chargers. Dynamic power management allows power to be allocated across multiple vehicles in real time, directing capacity where it is needed most and adjusting as demand changes throughout the day. This way retailers can increase the number of charging points, without having to invest in major infrastructure upgrades.

Start small, test, then scale

EV charging does not need to be all or nothing. Starting with a small number of charging points allows businesses to understand how customers use the service, gather utilisation data and build a business case for future expansion. Modular systems make it possible to add capacity over time, ensuring investment keeps pace with demand rather than getting ahead of it.

This approach reduces risk, improves capital efficiency and turns EV charging into a capability that can grow alongside both customer demand and broader EV adoption.

Make reliability your first consideration

Drivers who arrive expecting to charge and find equipment unavailable are unlikely to return. Nearly half of Australians say they are concerned about the reliability of EV charging infrastructure (48%) and access to available chargers (45%). For retailers, that means every charging experience has the potential to either build trust or erode it.

That's why retailers need to plan not just installation but also how they are monitoring performance, identifying issues and have robust response plans for if there is an incident or a charger goes offline.

Ultimately, reliable charging builds trust. And as EV drivers increasingly choose where to shop based on charging availability, that trust can become a meaningful competitive advantage.

What should businesses do next?

The first step is to investigate what the opportunity for EV charging at your location. You can take a test, learn and then scale approach to your investment so that you can build a sustainable model that works for your business and customers. This reduces risk while ensuring infrastructure delivers meaningful commercial returns.

EV adoption is continuing to accelerate, and public charging is continuing to fall behind. Retailers who take advantage of this opportunity to influence where people choose to stop, shop and spend will have a genuine advantage in attracting new customers and encouraging them to return.