by John Keller | Dec 6, 2013 | Customer News, Fuel Price Management Solutions, Fuel Pricing Technology, Fuel Software
According to the Wall Street Journal, the private-equity owners of BJ’s Wholesale have inquired about purchasing the chain of Hess c-stores and pairing them with the BJ’s Wholesale clubs. Hess had 1361 stations at the end of last year.
BJ’s Wholesale uses PriceAdvantage as their retail fuel software solution across all their clubs. The BJ’s implementation includes price changes with their POS system and electronic price signs. Says Scott Margherio, Vice President, Manager of Fuel & Automotive Operations of BJ’s Wholesale Club, “We used to spend a good part of the morning collecting surveys, inputting data into a spreadsheet and then submitting prices to the clubs. Now we are able to make price changes in under an hour, instantly receiving a confirmation that it has been completed, correctly.”
BJ’s reports the PriceAdvantage system saves roughly 3-4 hours per day in time management as well as costly pricing errors.
by John Keller | Dec 3, 2013 | Industry News, Retail Fuel Margins
The latest OPIS report reveals that retail fuel margins across the US dropped again this week. Average retail fuel margins were down $0.013 per gallon and now stand at $0.129 per gallon. That’s the fourth consecutive loss, and retail fuel margin averages are now at the lowest level since July 19 of this year.
The year to date average now stands at $0.189 per gallon, while the Q4 average is at $0.205 per gallon. The six week average is now at $0.195.
This is the second consecutive week that retail fuel margins this year are below the equivalent day of last year. In 2012, the average retail fuel margin was $0.167 per gallon. Last year average retail fuel margins rose $0.07 per gallon over the first three weeks of December, before dropping $0.11 per gallon the last week of the year.
by John Keller | Nov 26, 2013 | Customer News, Fuel Price Management Solutions, Industry News
According to the San Antonio Alamo City Beat, CST Brands plans to build 30 new stores in 2014. CST Brands opened 11 new stores in the past four months.
Additionally, CST Brands will ring the opening bell on Wall Street on December 3.
CST Brands has been rewarded favorably by financial analysts such as J.P. Morgan for their successful strategy of focusing on in-store margins by opening large c-stores. CST Brands has been quite successful at improving their fuel margins since being spun off from the Valero refinery parent.
CST Brands has been using PriceAdvantage as their exclusive retail fuel software since 2012.
by John Keller | Nov 25, 2013 | Customer News, Fuel Price Optimization, Fuel Pricing Software, Industry News, Retail Fuel Margins
In a recent update, J.P. Morgan announced they will begin financial coverage of CST Brands and Murphy USA. In their initial report, they make specific mention of their preference to the CST Brands strategy of focusing on higher margin in-store merchandise through larger store formats. The reason they gave was “Against a backdrop of stagnant gasoline demand and volatile fuel margins, the industry appears to be focused on growing higher-margin, in-store convenience merchandise through larger store formats. We prefer CST’s growth story, with new format stores driving margin growth over time and reducing the company’s dependence on fuel margins.”
In a blog dated November 14, 2013, I wrote about the correlation between fuel volumes an in-store sales. PriceAdvantage now allows you to select an unlimited number of product categories from an imported set of data from PDI, and run a report showing the correlation between retail fuel volumes and retail fuel prices with the selected data. That means you can see how fuel promotions impact in-store product category sales, along with the number of in-store transactions. You can even see how promotions of one in-store product category impact sales of another in-store product category, along with fuel volumes and fuel prices.
Clearly this strategic thinking is inline with what J.P. Morgan rewards. CST Brands has been a loyal PriceAdvantage customer since 2012. Does your fuel software allow you to investigate these correlations and maximize both fuel and in-store margins?
by John Keller | Nov 23, 2013 | Industry News, Retail Fuel Margins
OPIS reported today that average US retail fuel margins dropped by $0.08 per gallon this week to levels last seen in July of this year. The average retail fuel margin in the US now stands at $0.142 per gallon which is $0.10 per gallon lower than the beginning of the month. The six week average dipped to $0.204 per gallon and the average for Q4 lost one cent to $0.214 per gallon.
The last time retail fuel margins were below $0.15 per gallon was July 19, when retail fuel margins were at $0.10 per gallon. This week last year, the average retail fuel margin across the US was $0.192 per gallon. Last year at this time we saw one more week of margin declines, followed by three weeks of steady increases in December. In 2012 retail fuel margins ended the year at $0.132 per gallon.
Hopefully we’ll see this three week trend of decreases end soon and get a rebound heading into December.
