by John Keller | Oct 26, 2011 | Customer News, Fuel Pricing Technology, PriceAdvantage
Today one of our PriceAdvantage customers had a key question they needed to answer: “Who made that price change?” Late last night during the third shift someone changed the fuel price at the store. Was it an authorized price change, or was someone trying to get away with something?
PriceAdvantage keeps a complete audit trail of every price change at every store, making it easy to see who initiated every price change throughout history. In mere seconds the fuel pricing team could see that the price change was initiated at the store, and wasn’t authorized by headquarters.
Store Managers quickly learn that when PriceAdvantage is handling fuel pricing, there are no more chances for “Friends and family hour.” And that’s one of the key ways to reach true fuel price optimization.
by John Keller | Oct 25, 2011 | Fuel Price Management, Fuel Price Management Solutions, Fuel Price Optimization, Fuel Pricing Strategy
One of the components of fuel price management strategies is the public expectations of short term future trends in gas prices. Public expectations of gas prices are influenced by the most recent news articles. Today MSNBC.COM published an article setting expectations that gas prices will likely lower throughout the remaining months of the year. The article cites the US Energy Information Administration as saying gas prices should decrease through the beginning of the new year. Patrick DeHaan, Senior Petroleum Analyst at GasBuddy, is cited as saying he expects gas prices to possibly lower to $3.25 by the end of the year.
The article goes on to explain that fuel prices should lower due to decreased demand in the winter months, and the lower cost of winter fuel.
Obviously this article isn’t enough to base an entire fuel price management strategy on, but it is a key piece of information worthy of attention. Articles like these lead to drivers keeping an eye out for lower fuel prices, and to some degree asking what is taking so long for gas prices to lower.
by John Keller | Oct 21, 2011 | Fuel Pricing Strategy, Fuel Pricing Technology, Industry News, PriceAdvantage
Today Convenience Store News announced that Exxon just completed the sale of nearly 300 c-stores. Back in 2008, Exxon told USA Today they wanted to sell its c-stores because “it’s so hard to make money selling gas and diesel fuel to customers.”
Yes, Exxon, the days are over when you could simply open a store, fly your flag, and make money selling fuel. The retail fuel market is more dynamic and more competitive than ever. Fuel costs change daily, competitors are increasingly aggressive, and consumers are careful to pick where they buy fuel. It’s certainly not a business for the faint of heart.
And that’s precisely where fuel price management solutions like PriceAdvantage come in. Fuel Analysts use PriceAdvantage to quickly see what has changed in the market over night, and in a matter of minutes, their stores are implementing price changes to react. PriceAdvantage allows them to get the right price to the right store at the right time, not eight hours after the morning commute, but in time to maximize their fuel profits that same business day. Fuel Analysts use PriceAdvantage to carefully review their store / region / market performance by fuel margin and fuel volume, compared to target, and compared to last week, last month, and last year. Fuel Analysts make adjustments to fuel pricing strategies and tweak and tune to make necessary adjustments based on market changes, and to optimize prices across the enterprise. When competitor fuel prices change throughout the day, Fuel Analysts can choose to quickly respond with fuel price changes of their own no matter where they are, using their laptop or smart phone.
C-stores simply can’t compete by managing fuels prices with the old methods of spreadsheets, phone calls, and emails. It takes the closed loop fuels price management solution of PriceAdvantage to be profitable and to stay in the fuels price game.
by John Keller | Oct 11, 2011 | Retail Fuel Margins
According to Lundberg Survey, retail fuel margins dropped $.18 over the two week period ending October 7. On October 7, Regular grade retail fuel margins averaged 9.49 cents per gallon across the US.
Pooled retail fuel margin year to date across all fuels sits at 14.73 cents per gallon. That’s the highest retail fuel margin since 2008.
by John Keller | Oct 10, 2011 | Industry News
Numerous news stories today are predicting that fuel prices have hit bottom and are back on the rise. Several local stories are reporting that fuel prices have already begun to rise, including CNN who quotes sources from the Lundberg Survey as saying “It does suggest that this may be it for the decline.” News stories such as this are setting public expectations for fuel price increases in the future.
