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 8, 2014 | Customer News, Fuel Software, PriceAdvantage
The PriceAdvantage team would like to extend a warm family welcome to Kwik Chek / McCraw Oil, our latest partner and customer. Kwik Chek and McCraw Oil are based in Bonham, Texas, northeast of Dallas, and have locations throughout Texas and Oklahoma.
Kevin Smartt, CEO of Kwik Chek and Bill Wilson, President of McCraw Oil were looking for a fuel pricing solution that could find additional margins and efficiencies in their business. Smartt and Wilson needed a tool to reduce the time it takes to get data from the stores and then quickly turn around a price change to their Gilbarco and VeriFone POS systems. After months of evaluating various solutions, they decided that PriceAdvantage SMART Fuel Pricing was the best in class. They found that PriceAdvantage not only automated this process but also provided the price change confirmation feedback that was critical.
“We selected PriceAdvantage because their team understands our business needs and ultimately provides the best out-of-the-box solution giving us optimal fuel pricing control and management,” said Smartt.
“With our dealer locations we were experiencing delays in getting our pricing strategies implemented in a timely manner. PriceAdvantage allows us to be proactive to market changes, and gives us the pricing accountability and efficiency we need. This will allow us to capture additional profit for both our dealers and for McCraw Oil,” said Wilson. “We’re excited to begin the roll-out and look forward to a quick implementation.”
This implementation also includes the PriceAdvantage integration with PDI Enterprise.
Kwik Chek CEO Kevin Smartt is a member of the NACS Board of Directors, also serving on the NACS Research Committee along with Edward Holmes of Holmes Oil Company, Varish Goyal of Vintners Distributors, and Joseph Sheetz of Sheetz Inc., all of whom are PriceAdvantage customers.
Welcome Kwik Chek and McCraw Oil – we look forward to our mutual ongoing success together!
by John Keller | Apr 7, 2014 | Customer News, Industry News, PriceAdvantage
The New York Times published an interesting interview with Kim Bowers, CEO of CST Brands. The interview may be found here.
CST Brands became a PriceAdvantage customer in 2011 when they were under the Valero umbrella, completing their rollout to all stores in 2012. CST Brands has been using PriceAdvantage with great success, as the financial results show.
CST Brands has a representative on the PriceAdvantage Customer Advisory Board.
by John Keller | Mar 24, 2014 | Customer News
According to CSP.net, The Spinx Company has added two members to their executive leadership team. You may find the article here.
One of the new leaders is Cheryl Szczesniak, formerly Operations Controller at Spinx, promoted to CIO of the company responsible for the company’s technology infrastructure and IT project management, and now on the executive leadership team that focuses on strategy planning, policy development and workplace oversight for Spinx.
Cheryl is a longtime friend of PriceAdvantage, having been part of the PriceAdvantage rollout to all their stores in 2011, and every PriceAdvantage upgrade since. A case study of how Spinx uses PriceAdvantage may be found here. Cheryl certainly has earned her stripes because under her direction, Spinx has successfully integrated PriceAdvantage with their Gilbarco POS system, NCR Radiant POS system, OPIS Radius reports, and PDI.
We’re proud to have Spinx as a customer and partner, and to have Cheryl Szczesniak as a friend.
