by John Keller | Mar 29, 2013 | Retail Fuel Margins
OPIS reported this week that retail fuel margins gained back the $0.02 loss of last week, and are back to $0.220 per gallon.
For the first quarter of 2013, retail fuel margins averaged $0.159 per gallon. It was March that saved the quarter. Average retail fuel margins for January were $0.148, average retail fuel margins for February were $0.105, and average retail fuel margins for March were $0.212.
The first quarter of the year is typically challenging for c-store store margins. But to finish up the quarter with an average of $0.159, when NACS says typical retail margins across an entire year are in the $0.16 range, and better margin quarters are ahead of us, the 2013 year is looking promising.
by John Keller | Mar 28, 2013 | Fuel Price Management Solutions, Fuel Price Optimization, Fuel Pricing Software
In a recent issue of Advertising Age, I came across an interesting insert from a company named Collective about reaching people across all their multiple devices. It was written from the perspective of breaking down silos between devices when building an advertising campaign, so people will get the same message while watching TV, as they get while browsing the Web from their smart phone, tablet, or PC.
One of the parts of the document discussed the prevalence of people owning multiple devices, the most common time of day people use each device, and the nature of the tasks they perform while on each device.
From a fuel price management perspective, this discussion caught my attention because fuel analysts must be highly attentive to the dynamic market in which they compete, including while travelling, after hours during the business week, and on weekends. In order to still have a personal life, fuel analysts are turning to their mobile devices to monitor changes, and to respond to those changes quickly. For example, it is now possible using PriceAdvantage from a tablet or smart phone to review a set of proposed price changes triggered by competitor price movements, and strategy business rules built to respond to those competitor price movements. Using PriceAdvantage on a mobile device, fuel analysts can review store and market performance to make an informed decision about what the new optimized price should be. And from that tablet or smart phone the fuel analyst can use PriceAdvantage to initiate the price change and track the status of the price change, paying special attention when price changes are deemed late.
The beauty of all this is that fuel analysts can quickly take care of business from the field during half time of their kids’ soccer game, or from the couch during March Madness. Fuel analysts have these devices with them all the time anyway, so allowing these devices to increase fuel pricing efficiencies only makes sense. In the case of one territory manager of a Skyline customer, PriceAdvantage was the tipping point to convince him to buy a smart mobile device just so he could take care of business while away from the desk.
Even if you don’t own a mobile device, having PriceAdvantage at your finger tips is a logical replacement to the headaches of the homegrown Excel-based fuel price management solution because it improves efficiencies while on business travel. One customer told us of the nightmares of being away from the office in the days before PriceAdvantage. He would have the office assistant email all the spreadsheets he needed, but since he didn’t have access to a printer, he would try to make sense of it all on a tiny laptop screen. Because it was such a handicap to be away from the office, he would only take care of pricing a subset of stores and hope for the best with the others when he was on business travel. Now that PriceAdvantage is in place, he allows the assistant at the home office to accept the proposed prices at those stores where the strategy pricing rules have generated proposed prices where all the strategy criteria is met, so he can focus on the remaining exceptions. And with his laptop and a VPN connection, he can access the entire fuel price management system and have access to all the rich analysis and optimization capabilities it provides. Being away on business is no longer a hindrance, and he doesn’t even miss a beat while on the road.
Whether you’re checking email on the smart phone first thing in the morning or last thing at night, or using the tablet while refueling at Starbucks, or in a hotel between store visits, PriceAdvantage allows you to always be in touch, and always operate at peak efficiency.
by John Keller | Mar 27, 2013 | Fuel Price Management Solutions
According to a San Antonio news source, Valero has one hurdle remaining before they can spin off the convenience store side of its business into its own entity.
The point of the spinoff is to give Valero share holders more value, as investors and financial analysts recognize the value of the retail operation on its own, beyond the refinery business. Other similar retailers have a trade valuation of $2 billion, according to Valero CFO Mike Ciskowski, so this spinoff would add $2 billion to Valero shareholder value.
But the IRS has yet to issue a private letter ruling, confirming that shares in the new company can be treated as a tax-free distribution to shareholders. Ciskowski isn’t alarmed, and expects the letter is likely to come in the next month or so, since Valero is in month five of a typical six month process.
The new company will be called CST Brands Inc., taken from the Valero brand “Corner Store”. The company will operate 1900 sites in the US and Canada, and will be publicly traded on the NYSE.
Roughly 1030 of those Corner Stores are in the US and use PriceAdvantage to manage the entire fuel price management cycle. The close customer partnership with Valero allowed the PriceAdvantage team to deliver industry leading analytics and optimization features to the product over the course of the last 15 months.
by John Keller | Mar 22, 2013 | Industry News, Retail Fuel Margins
OPIS in their report this week showed US retail fuel margins were down for the second straight week. Retail fuel margins across the US now average $0.195 per gallon, down $0.023 per gallon from last week.
With one week to go for the quarter, average retail fuel margins now stand at $0.154 per gallon, which is roughly the average of January this year. We can expect the average Q1 retail fuel margins for this year will be in this same range since there isn’t enough time to bring up the three month average.
On the positive side, the average retail fuel margin now stands at $0.210 per gallon. If Q2 can begin with retail fuel margins at that level, it will make for a good headstart to the calendar year.
by John Keller | Mar 22, 2013 | Fuel Price Management Solutions, Fuel Pricing Strategy, Industry News
The PriceAdvantage team would like to congratulate the GasBuddy OpenStore team on their announcement of E-Z Mart becoming a customer. E-Z Mart is the latest c-store chain to recognize the importance of social media in the fuel price management process.
The PriceAdvantage and OpenStore teams recognized the importance of integrating social media into fuel price management several years ago, and started working together in late 2010. It was then that we began developing an integration that allowed PriceAdvantage to post the latest fuel price changes to OpenStore, and then in turn to the GasBuddy sites. Rutter’s was our crucial partner as we built out to the requirements, and the initial implementation was completed by Rutter’s in 2012. In 2013 Parker’s completed their combined implementation as well. And PriceAdvantage customer Valero is also pushing fuel prices to GasBuddy.
More and more we’re seeing the marketing department saddling up with the fuel pricing team, as both groups are recognizing the importance of making sure customers see the most recent and accurate fuel prices on the map, using OpenStore to broadcast marketing promotions, all to drive more traffic and fuel volumes to the store.
