How AVIA Used Roamler to Check Its Tobacco Sales Compliance

The Context: More Tobacco Sales, More Exposure

With the ban on selling smoking products in Dutch supermarkets taking effect on 1 July 2024, tobacco transactions at service stations were expected to rise further. For station operators, that means more volume in a category where the rules are strict and the penalties are real.

Tobacco cannot be sold to minors, so staff must ask for official ID and check it properly before every sale. The Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) enforces this through test purchases, and failure carries fines of up to €9,000 — with a temporary ban on tobacco sales also possible.

The scale is what makes this hard. A busy service station can process around 250 tobacco transactions a day, which is a lot of opportunities for one lapse. Electronic ID checkers, posters and management attention all help, but the NVWA's most recent published sample still found failures in 51% of cases. When it happens, it is a bad day for the operator and for the employee at the till.

What AVIA Did About It

Members of the AVIA cooperative had been caught out by exactly this — inspections followed by fines. Rather than treat it as a training problem alone, they built a full plan-do-check-act cycle around it.

Every measure that could reduce the likelihood of a violation went into the plan. The plan was then rolled out on the shop floor, with managers giving the issue focused attention so that every employee understood what was expected.

For the check phase, AVIA turned to Roamler — already a familiar partner through promotion checks and brand monitoring. Roamler deployed adult mystery shoppers with a youthful appearance, within the applicable legal framework, so that the effectiveness of the measures could be measured rather than assumed.

The Results

Across three successive waves, the share of visits where age was correctly checked moved as follows. Figures cover participating stations only.

Share of mystery visits with a correct age check, participating AVIA stations. Source: Roamler Mystery Shopping.

The first wave found age going unchecked in two thirds of visits. That triggered the act phase: employees who handled it correctly were rewarded and recognised in internal newsletters, and those who did not were coached individually.

It worked. Correct checks roughly doubled between the first and second waves, then climbed again to 70%.

AVIA members are not where they want to be yet, but they now have visibility into which stations are getting it right and which are not — and the improvement is showing up outside the programme too. NVWA inspectors have started complimenting AVIA staff on handling checks correctly.

In Their Words

Changing behavior is easier said than done. The recurring nature of the Roamlers' mystery visits allows AVIA to be close to the target in terms of laws and regulations surrounding tobacco sales. We see that it is getting the necessary attention among AVIA affiliated members and stations. The results have and will continue to improve thanks to the insight this measurement gives us.

Susan Kuijpers General Manager, AVIA cooperative

With all the measures AVIA has taken to be compliant with regulations, the interaction between the employee and the customer ultimately remains "the moment of truth". Nice to see that we can make a positive contribution to this with our mystery shoppers!

Christiaan Rijnhout Commercial Lead, Roamler