CSNews survey provides industry insight

  • CSNews survey provides industry insight

    On page 90 of the March issue of Convenience Store News magazine, there is some interesting survey insight regarding c-store retail fuels sales, comparing 2013 to 2012:

    1. 40.9% of c-stores surveyed said gas price volatility caused a decrease in store traffic.
    2. 38.6 % said gas price volatility caused a decrease in profitability.
    3. 27.3% said gas price volatility caused a decrease in sales.
    4. 13.6% said gas price volatility caused improved margins.
    5. 17.3% said they had increased gallons sold per transaction.
    6. 32.7% said they had decreased gallons sold per transaction.
    7. 50% said they had the same gallons sold per transaction.

    What are we to make of this? Savvy c-store chains are able to manage what they measure, and develop effective fuel pricing strategies that fit into the overall profitability of each store. That means optimizing store traffic, acknowledging cases when sales and gallons sold per transaction may be lower, but managing every penny to optimize profits, both at the forecourt and in the store.

    PriceAdvantage in conjunction with PDI allows you to directly see the correlation between fuels sales and other transactions of any kind. We call this the Volume Correlation report, unveiled at NACS and released in PriceAdvantage version 2013.3. Using PDI information, you can quickly see the correlation between fuel promotions and in-store sales, number of transactions, and average transaction size by product category, overlayed on top of volumes sold and price per gallon.

    How do c-stores survive in today’s volatile fuels market? The old adage “You can’t manage what you can’t measure” holds true. With PriceAdvantage c-stores manage what they measure.

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