by John Keller | May 26, 2010 | Fuel Pricing Software, Fuel Pricing Technology, Industry News, PriceAdvantage
In the 5/26/2010 edition of the CSP Daily News, the NACStech Roundup report includes a summary of what Skyline Products is doing with the PriceAdvantage fuel pricing software. It describes how c-stores who upgrade hardware for PCI compliance get the additional benefit of fuel price management to the sign and POS.
“Skyline Products, Colorado Springs, Colo: Increasing, electronic capability at the c-store is allowing Skyline the ability to integrate and execute fuel pricing strategies, according to company officials. Aaron McHugh, division director, said PCI deadlines have forced many to upgrade registers and wide-area networks, which allows for the functionality necessary to better control and execute pricing changes.”
For years Skyline has touted the ability to hang fuel price signs off the VeriFone POS system, and allow the POS to change fuel prices at the sign. Now in 2010 Skyline’s PriceAdvantage fuel pricing software application provides the additional benefit of allowing the Fuel Manager to change fuel prices from headquarters, down to the VeriFone Sapphire POS, and out to the sign. Once the price is changed at the sign, confirmation is provided back to the PriceAdvantage fuel price software at headquarters, with a time/date stamp alerting the Fuel Manager when exactly the prices were changed at the sign and across the system. This closed loop integration has already improved speed to the street at customers such as Fikes (CEFCO convenience stores) based in Temple, TX.
by John Keller | Apr 14, 2010 | Fuel Price Management, Fuel Price Optimization, Fuel Pricing Software, Fuel Pricing Technology, Industry News, PriceAdvantage, Retail Fuel Margins
Skyline Products announced today that they have launched a new separate division to focus solely on their patent-pending PriceAdvantage™ software that is literally changing the way the convenience store industry manages fuel pricing.
The industry has taken notice. “Customers like Sheetz, Royal Farms, Fikes Wholesale, Spinx and others are faster, more efficient, fully automated way to run their fuel business,” says Aaron McHugh, who is leading the charge for the new PriceAdvantage software division.
Sheetz saw $141,000 cost savings, Fikes Wholesale, Spinx and Rutter’s are now controlling price changes from headquarters to their pumps, POS and electronic signs. “With the tactical elements fully automated, our customers can better focus on their strategy,” says McHugh. The return on investment for PriceAdvantage is often less than 12 months making this one of the most effective and efficient tools in the industry.
Seven years ago, this long-time hardware and software company saw an opportunity to dramatically increase their customers’ fuel profits by providing fuel managers with critical competitive information, making it simple and quick to implement price changes. PriceAdvantage puts the optimal price at the fuel manager’s fingertips and allows them to command every price change from headquarters. This maximizes fuel profitability by guaranteeing that the right price is the price is posted.
Greg Stadjuhar, Skyline Vice President of Sales says, “With our long time involvement in the petroleum industry, we recognized an opportunity to leverage the ingenuity and success we’d experienced with command and control software in the transportation industry for the last twenty years. It became clear very quickly that we had the right formula. Almost immediately, PriceAdvantage became a tremendous success for Skyline and our customers.”
Skyline has been so successful with PriceAdvantage they are launching a new division dedicated solely to its continued development and success. “The market has been in need of this for a while. If we can put a man on the moon, why do fuel price managers still have to manually hunt down competitive and market data, and call every store for a price change?” says McHugh. “We’ve solved that problem, and we are the only company doing it. The time is right, the market is ready, and we are delivering.”
Underscoring their commitment, they have hired software industry veterans to help implement a strong infrastructure and accelerate their success. Joining McHugh’s team are John Keller and Quentin Goin, each bringing more than 13 years of business-to-business software industry experience.
Sr. Product Manager, John Keller, says, “This is an exciting and compelling opportunity for me. I thrive on taking customer and market input, and helping create a solution that they don’t know how they ever lived without. Skyline’s PriceAdvantage software began something that will allow us to literally revolutionize the way fuel prices are managed. This is only the beginning of an industry-wide shift and we are on the forefront making it happen.”
A perfect compliment to Keller’s skills, Quentin Goin, Sales and Implementation Engineer, works side-by-side with customers and implements a configured PriceAdvantage solution to match their needs. Passionate about his work, an animated Goin says, “I have been helping customers solve problems with technology since 1997, and I have never seen such a rapid and considerable return on investment as Skyline customers get with PriceAdvantage.”
Says McHugh, “Skyline’s innovation and commitment to solving these problems is driving expansion and growth even in a tough economy. The contribution of these two accomplished software industry experts has already increased the speed at which we are delivering high quality solutions to our customers.”
by John Keller | Apr 14, 2010 | Fuel Price Optimization, Fuel Pricing Software, PriceAdvantage, Retail Fuel Margins
John Keller, Sr. Product Manager and R&D Manager of the PriceAdvantage fuel pricing software division of Skyline Products will be a member of the PCATS panel at the upcoming NACStech tradeshow May 5-7, 2010 in New Orleans.
The panel of 5 will discuss the topic relevant to convenience stores “Why Doesn’t This Stuff Work Together? Device Integration Work Being Conducted By PCATS”. The moderator will be Scott Wood, PCATS Director, Standards Development & Maintenance. It should be a lively discussion.
by John Keller | Mar 10, 2010 | Customer News, Fuel Price Management, Fuel Pricing Software, Fuel Pricing Technology
According to Convenience Store News, the SPINX convenience store chain has acquired ten more c-stores. All ten stores are located in South Carolina, and will be re-branded to the SPINX name. With this acquisition, SPINX now owns and operates 74 c-stores.
Spinx has been effectively utilizing the PriceAdvantage fuel pricing software solution from Skyline Products to optimize their fuel prices in each market, and rapidly push fuel prices to the street from their headquarters office. The SPINX implementation includes pushing fuel prices to the sign.
The Convenience Store News article may be found here.
by John Keller | Jan 22, 2010 | Fuel Price Management Solutions, Fuel Pricing Software
PriceAdvantage fuel pricing software is featured in a CSP Magazine article titled “From Guts to Gigabytes”, where fuel retailers discuss using fuel price management solutions to optimize, simplify, and accelerate speed-to-street fuel pricing. Murphy Oil and CEFCO are two featured c-store companies in the interview. Here’s an excerpt:
Things have greatly changed in the month since implementation. Morrow-Cortinez says fuel pricing takes a mere 15 minutes for that location. The software is compatible with the company’s Verifone POS terminal and electronic price sign (also from Skyline), so prices that are input at the home office can also be made directly at the store. “We hit a send button and it goes down and does the rest of the work for us,” she says. “The store personnel, besides being alerted as a message on the register system, don’t have to do a thing.”
View the entire article here.
by John Keller | Mar 15, 2007 | Customer News, Fuel Pricing Software, Fuel Pricing Technology, PriceAdvantage
Skyline Products, long known for its high-quality electronic price displays, announces the installation of its newest product, PriceAdvantage™ Central Control Fuel Pricing Software, at pilot sites of Royal Farms, Inc. of Baltimore, Md. The revolutionary, patent-pending software allows petroleum marketers at corporate headquarters to remotely update fuel pricing in the field at the POS system, the pump, and the Skyline Electronic Price Display—all from their computer, laptop, and PDA.
“Using PriceAdvantage, our customers can remotely execute their individual fuel pricing strategy per store, per grade in real-time,” comments Greg Stadjuhar, Skyline Products vice president of sales and marketing. “Some have called this ‘pricing nirvana.’ With today’s market volatility, companies can no longer solely rely on the store manager to change the price, collect the competitive data and confirm the changes were made. According to OPIS from 2005 to present, the average retailer changes fuel prices five or more times per week. PriceAdvantage enables savvy petroleum marketers, like Royal Farms, the ability to instantly react to competitive market changes from anywhere and confirm—with absolute certainty—that the changes occurred. The ROI is very compelling when new price generation and implementation can be reduced to minutes, which for most operators would formerly take hours.”
PriceAdvantage automates the three major components of a typical fuel-pricing process: competitive data collection, analysis, and price implementation at the store. Recent competitive price changes are available real-time via electronic updates from either an in-store, touch-screen input device by store personnel; web applications providing third-party data sources, like OPIS and GasBuddy; or back-office imports. Fuel managers can set up customizable pricing rules against which new competitive data is evaluated (e.g. “maintain Store A’s unleaded, mid, premium fuels at one cent below primary competitor”). Updates to fuel pricing can then be sent instantly to the site’s POS system, the dispenser, and the Skyline Electronic Price Display—freeing store managers to focus on customer service. By integrating with back-office accounting systems, like PDI, PriceAdvantage also includes easy-to-use pricing analysis tools to enable the pricing managers to determine price points at which store profitability is maximized.
Rob Rinehart, Royal Farms director of gasoline trading, says, “The PriceAdvantage pilot program has given us the opportunity to test-drive the product on a limited basis and to evaluate its benefits. With PriceAdvantage in place, I know the competitors’ prices within seconds of a change. I can fine-tune our prices instantly, and I receive immediate confirmation that the changes occurred. We’re seeing the positive impact on gross margins already and the pilot program has proven to be cost-effective. We are now in process of implementing the PriceAdvantage solution at all of our store locations in 2007.”
Says Stadjuhar, “No other fuel pricing software product on the market provides certified integration between the POS, the pump and the electronic sign, while automating fuel-pricing control at the central office. It’s long overdue, and it’s a recipe for a chain’s success in today’s highly volatile and margin-thin market.”
