by John Keller | Apr 18, 2014 | Industry News, Retail Fuel Margins
The OPIS fuel margin report this week revealed that the average retail fuel margin across the US dipped $0.006 per gallon to $0.121 per gallon. That’s the third consecutive decline. The average retail fuel margin has now declined $0.047 per gallon since the beginning of this quarter.
The year to date average continues its drop since the high point on February 7, when the average retail fuel margin was $0.178. The year to date average is now $0.154 per gallon. The six week average is $0.143, the lowest since March 21, and the second lowest of the year.
This same Friday in 2013, we had the retail fuel margin average at $0.234 per gallon, $.113 per gallon higher than today. However, it was this time last year when retail fuel margins took a dive over the course of four weeks, dropping to $0.123, which turned out to be the lowest of the quarter. We’ll see if this year we can fend off any repeat of that margin trend.
by John Keller | Apr 17, 2014 | Customer News, Fuel Price Management Solutions, Industry News, PriceAdvantage
In the news today, Convenience Store Decisions reported that PriceAdvantage customer Parker’s has created the CTO position at their company and named Stephen Hines as CTO.
“In his new position, Hines will be responsible for overseeing and managing all current technologies for Parker’s. He will ensure that all technology related decisions are aligned with the company’s business goals, build the internal IT department to support the company’s growth, and maintain all processes, procedures, and documentation for internal IT systems,” according to Convenience Store Decisions.
Parker’s has been a PriceAdvantage customer for over one year, integrating PriceAdvantage with their VeriFone POS system, PDI back office, and GasBuddy OpenStore, as well as their Skyline electronic price signs.
by John Keller | Apr 15, 2014 | Customer News, Industry News
According to CSPNet.com, CST Brands has retained the realty and financial advisory services of NRC Realty & Capital Advisors LLC to sell 100 convenience stores. The story appears on CSPNet.com here.
Convenience stores with gas will be offered with the option for sale with fuel supply, which will be provided by CST Brands.
The states where these stores are located are as follows: 61 locations in Texas, 22 in Colorado, 14 in Arizona, seven in California, four in both Arkansas and Louisiana, three in New Mexico, one in Utah and one in Wyoming.
UPDATE: each location sells on average over 3,000 gallons of fuel per day. According to a CST Brands statement, that makes these stores ideal locations for CST’s wholesale business.
This is the first time CST Brands has publicly mentioned a wholesale business as a strategic direction.
CST Brands uses PriceAdvantage across all their US stores to monitor fuel volume and margin performance. It is through PriceAdvantage then, that CST can quickly identify the stores that are most logical to put up for sale.
NRC Realty & Capital Advisors provides “cradle to grave” real estate and financial advisory services to their clients, resulting in the sale of over 10,000 properties throughout North America. The c-store industry is one of their key areas of expertise, so recent clients include well-known names such as 7-11, Cumberland Farms, and Getty Realty.
The bid deadline for the CST locations is just two months away, June 17, 2014.
by John Keller | Apr 15, 2014 | Customer News, Industry News, PriceAdvantage
Lately there has been a lot of press about the Heartbleed virus, discussing what sites and applications have been affected. The biggest names in the software industry have been impacted, so there’s no wonder the Heartbleed security problem has been in the news. If you’d like more information about how pervasive this problem is, check out the article here.
The PriceAdvantage team takes security very seriously. We can say with the utmost certainty that our PriceAdvantage customers can be rest assured that the Heartbleed security problem has no affect on their PriceAdvantage system in any way.
Here’s why:
OpenSSL is not built into PriceAdvantage anywhere. Because PriceAdvantage servers/software are IIS/Windows based, there is nothing to worry about with regard to Heartbleed because IIS/Windows uses its own SSL software. That is the only place where PriceAdvantage uses SSL.
If you’d like to dig deeper into this answer, please feel free to contact the PriceAdvantage Support team.
by John Keller | Apr 11, 2014 | PriceAdvantage, Retail Fuel Margins
The OPIS report today showed average retail fuel margins across the US lost ground again this week. The average US retail fuel margin now stands at $0.127 per gallon, a $0.027 decline from last week. That’s the second consecutive decrease and the fourth drop in five weeks.
The year to date average dipped slightly to $0.156 per gallon, as did the six week average to $0.149 per gallon. The Q2 average is now $0.141 per gallon.
The current retail fuel margin is substantially lower than last year at this time, when it was $0.268 per gallon. The April 2013 average retail fuel margin finished the month at $0.219 per gallon last year. Half way into April, it’s not likely we’ll catch up to that monthly average this year.
