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Pic-n-Pac Selects PriceAdvantage SMART(TM) Fuel Pricing for Fuel Price Management

PriceAdvantage, a division of Skyline Products, announced today that Pic-n-Pac Convenience Stores has licensed PriceAdvantage SMART™ Fuel Pricing, a fuel price management solution, for their 15 stores in Texas. Pic-n-Pac will use PriceAdvantage on a subscription basis for a fully integrated fuel price management offering.

“Pic-n-Pac competes with some of the largest retailers in the country and we needed help to level the playing field. We feel that PriceAdvantage is the perfect solution as it will help us become more efficient in our daily operations by streamlining and automating our process for determining and implementing new fuel prices,” said Phil Wuest, Director of Operations of Pic-n-Pac.

“We welcome Pic-n-Pac to our family of customers and are eager to help them improve their fuel pricing processes,” said Chip Stadjuhar, CEO of Skyline Products. “PriceAdvantage SMART Fuel Pricing will help them evaluate pricing from headquarters, giving them the data to make informed pricing decisions rapidly.”

Stadjuhar adds, “PriceAdvantage SMART Fuel Pricing, a fully scalable solution, is as effective for a small growing chain of 15 stores as it is for a national chain with thousands of locations.”

Pic-n-Pac Convenience Stores is a privately held, family owned and operated business. Headquartered in McQueeney, TX, Pic-n-Pac is approaching its 50th year anniversary. The first convenience store was opened in 1964 and was the vision of our company’s founder, Harvey Edward Wuest. Today, the company has grown to 15 locations serving customers in Guadalupe, Comal and Caldwell counties.

Welcome J & H Oil to the PriceAdvantage family

The PriceAdvantage team is pleased to announce that J & H Oil has joined the PriceAdvantage family. J & H Oil is running PriceAdvantage in the cloud, a configuration that has become quite popular with our customers over the past 12 months. The cloud configuration, also known as “Software as a Service”, frees up company IT resources because the server maintenance responsibility rests with the PriceAdvantage team.

J & H Oil is a family owned and operated company running 36 company operated convenience stores in West Michigan. J & H Oil had a rigorous evaluation process for their fuels pricing solution, including a pilot of running PriceAdvantage in the real world. J & H Oil found PriceAdvantage to be the best way to improve the speed at which they collect competitor information, and to make sure all price changes are accurate. J & H Oil also found the SNAP Analytics in PriceAdvantage to be quite valuable, so they elected to include that in their implementation.

We at PriceAdvantage look forward to a strong and long-term partnership with J & H Oil – welcome to the family!

Parker’s wins Entrepreneurial Business of the Year

The Savannah Morning News awarded The Parker Companies “Entrepreneur of the Year”. The award is based on criteria such as growth and success, as well as philanthropy and community involvement.

Greg Parker, CEO of Parker’s Convenience Stores, attributed the company’s success on the idea that they worship data, and that they use technology in a way that other companies don’t.

A significant part of the data and technology that Mr. Parker is referring is the Parker’s PriceAdvantage implementation that includes PDI, VeriFone POS, GasBuddy OpenStore, and Skyline electronic price signs. “I’m looking for every single gallon of gas I can sell,” he said. “There is no way I’m going to let a competitor get up on me. We’re going to be the low price leader.”

Parker’s plans to open their 35th store next month, with 17 more stores in the pipeline.

The PriceAdvantage team would like to congratulate Parker’s on their ongoing success and rapidly accumulating list of awards. We look forward to our ongoing close relationship and our mutual success.

Congratulations to PriceAdvantage customer Flyers Energy on their expansion

The PriceAdvantage team would like to congratulate Flyers Energy LLC on their recent expansion. Flyers Energy acquired the assets of Allied Washoe Petroleum, based in Reno Nevada.

Flyers Energy has been a PriceAdvantage customer since 2012 as part of their retail fuel software solution that includes PDI and VeriFone as components of their closed loop fuel pricing strategies. Flyers Energy selected PriceAdvantage to improve pricing consistency, communication with stores, and automated price change confirmation.

“PriceAdvantage allows us to automate our fuel pricing process while aligning our pricing strategy and improving communications across our network of sites,” said Tom DiMercurio, Director of Accounting at Flyers Energy. “Our goal is to leverage technology to reduce operating expenses and to provide a means of tracking the implementation of price changes through the whole process. PriceAdvantage is allowing us to accomplish both of these objectives.”

Congratulations to PriceAdvantage customer Rutter’s for opening their 59th store

The PriceAdvantage team would like to congratulate Rutter’s for opening their 59th location. Rutter’s has been a long-time Skyline Products customer of both PriceAdvantage and Skyline electronic price signs.

Rutter’s started using PriceAdvantage as a pilot project in 2007, and seeing success there, they rolled out PriceAdvantage to all their stores in 2011. The Rutter’s implementation of PriceAdvantage is a complete closed loop fuel pricing software solution, including NCR Radiant POS systems, Skyline electronic gas price signs, and GasBuddy OpenStore.

Thank you Rutter’s for your great partnership, and congratulations to your successful launch of store #59.

 

BJ’s Wholesale Club considering purchasing Hess c-stores

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.