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- 03 Feb
Overall average retail fuel margin for January much stronger than last year
According to the OPIS US retail fuel margins data, January 2014 was much stronger than January 2013. And for many retailers, that may mean the difference between making money and losing money on fuels.
The average retail fuel margins for January this year were $0.172 per gallon compared to $0.148 per gallon last year, a difference of $.024 per gallon.
That may not seem like a big difference, but according to the 2014 NACS Fuels Report, on average, it costs a retailer about 12 to 16 cents to sell a gallon of gasoline. That means the difference between retail fuel margin averages in January this year and last year is the difference between profit and loss. Such is the life of the retail fuels manager: always dancing on that fuels margin razor’s edge between making money and losing money on the largest product category in the c-store industry.
The retail fuels business truly is a game of pennies, or even fractions of a penny. But in order to stay in business, it’s not just a game, it’s a war game, requiring the best possible toolsets and processes to squeeze every fraction of a cent out of every gallon, every day, at every store.
Don’t just take our word for it – listen to what NACS has to say: “Over the course of a year, retail profits (or even losses) on fuels can vary wildly. In some cases, a few great weeks can make up for an otherwise dreadful year — or vice versa.”
Does your retail fuels software allow you to quickly compare store and market performance to these national benchmarks? Does your retail fuels software allow you to quickly make adjustments to execute the optimized price at every store, at every location, every hour of every day? If it doesn’t, that’s OK, it simply means you’re not using PriceAdvantage. And if you’re not using PriceAdvantage, you’re not equipping yourself with the best technology available on the market. And that means you’re simply operating at a competitive disadvantage in this game of war.
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