by John Keller | May 16, 2014 | Fuel Pricing Strategy, Industry News
According to a recent NACS consumer survey of 1183 gasoline customers, more consumers are saying they’ll spend more money than otherwise expected this summer (25% of those surveyed) compared to less money than otherwise expected this summer (16% of those surveyed). In the midwest, 33% of consumers surveyed said they plan to spend more money than otherwise expected this summer, the highest percentage of any region in the US.
According to NACS, Americans are expected to average more than two summer vacation trips of at least two nights away from home, and the bulk of this travel will be by car. More than 8 in 10 consumers (84%) say that they will drive for a summer vacation.
In related news, CSNews reported that 2013 retail fuel volumes were up 1.6%.
From a fuel price management perspective, we can hope that the NACS consumer survey predictions hold true, and that retail fuel volumes will grow at least as much as they did in 2013.
by John Keller | May 13, 2014 | Customer News, Fuel Price Optimization, Fuel Pricing Strategy, Fuel Software
PriceAdvantage customer CST Brands reported their earnings for their first quarter today. Here are the fuel highlights.
- Retail fuel margins before credit card fees were $0.139 per gallon, up from $0.116 per gallon for the same period in 2013. According to the weekly OPIS reports, average retail fuel margins across the US were down $0.001 per gallon compared to last year. That means CST Brands was able to beat the national average this year and gain margins. This is the goal of CST Brands according to previous financial reports, as CST Brands has shifted their fuel pricing strategy to focus on gaining retail fuel margins. CST Brands was once again successful in achieving that margin goal.
- Retail fuel volumes per site per day were 4,797 gallons compared to 5,048 gallons last year. That equates to a 4.97% decrease in gallons year over year.
Is this strategy shift to a margin emphasis working for CST Brands, given the loss of volumes? Let’s do the math. Suppose Q1 of 2014 had the same number of gallons sold in the US as Q1 of 2013. That’s a bold assumption, given that fuel volumes have been on a continual decrease for many years now, but for argument’s sake let’s use that assumption. Multiply the 2013 results of 5,048 gallons by $0.116 per gallon, and you get $585 in daily margin. Multiply the 2014 results of 4,797 gallons by $$0.139 per gallon, and you get $666 in daily margin. That’s an improvement in daily margin of $81. Multiply that by 90 days in the quarter by 1038 stores and you get an improvement of $7.57 million.
Clearly the fuel pricing strategy at CST Brands is working.
CST Brands, when they were under the Valero umbrella, worked closely with the PriceAdvantage team to develop a rich set of analysis views and reports so they could optimize their entire fuels business. Since rolling out PriceAdvantage across all their stores in 2012, CST Brands now reaps the benefit of this rich information in PriceAdvantage by implementing a winning fuel pricing strategy as proven by these quarterly results.
by John Keller | Mar 24, 2014 | Customer News, Fuel Price Management Solutions, Fuel Pricing Software, Fuel Pricing Strategy, Fuel Pricing Technology, Fuel Software, PriceAdvantage, Retail Fuel Margins
Earlier this month, CSPnet.com reported that CST Brands has identified 100 stores that are candidates for sale. You may find the article here. This is part of an ongoing effort at CST Brands to “assess its asset base and close convenience stores that are no longer core to its ongoing strategy”.
Kim Bowers, the CEO of CST Brands, said in the latest earnings call that in 2013 CST Brands closed 11 stores based on their “lower cash flow levels”. In other words, CST Brands pruned their portfolio of stores to rid the company of their bottom performers.
PriceAdvantage provides the analysis views and reports to quickly zero in on the under-performing locations by comparing store performance to target, to last year, and to other stores. Easy to read tools such as heat maps with color coded push pins show at a glance stores that are dragging down entire regions with their lower fuel volumes and fuel margins.
CST Brands, when they were under the Valero umbrella, worked closely with the PriceAdvantage team to develop precisely these sorts of views and reports so they could optimize their entire fuels business. Since rolling out PriceAdvantage across all their stores in 2012, CST Brands now reaps the benefit of this rich information in PriceAdvantage to deliver on the promise to Wall Street that CST Brands will continue to identify the stores that are the best candidates for sale, and the best candidates for the CST Brands wholesale business.
by John Keller | Mar 24, 2014 | Customer News, Fuel Pricing Software, Fuel Pricing Strategy, Fuel Software, PriceAdvantage
The first meeting of the PriceAdvantage Customer Advisory Board was held at the corporate headquarters of CST Brands in San Antonio, Texas, and the meeting was a smashing success.
The members of the PriceAdvantage Customer Advisory Board are
- Tony Castro, Manager Fuel Pricing, CST Brands
- Gabe Olives, Director of Fuels, Rutter’s
- Bryan Zeiger, Director of Fuel Marketing, Spinx
- Joe Wills, Fuels Manager, The Wills Group
- Lance Gentry, Director of Fuels and Information Technology, Kocolene
- Jeff Bush, Director of Fuel Management, Parker’s
Tony Castro showed us how CST Brands uses their PriceAdvantage fuel software to manage fuel prices across each of their stores, as well as how CST Brands uses PriceAdvantage for executive level reporting. We also had a lively discussion about what is most important for the upcoming releases of PriceAdvantage.
The mission of the Customer Advisory Board is to connect industry leaders for the purpose of innovation. The PriceAdvantage team has always put an emphasis on customer collaboration, and the Customer Advisory Board is one more way to make collaboration happen.
We learned a lot from our inaugural gathering, and I look forward to our upcoming meetings as we build the future of PriceAdvantage together.
by John Keller | Mar 5, 2014 | Customer News, Fuel Pricing Software, Fuel Pricing Strategy, Fuel Pricing Technology, Fuel Software
PriceAdvantage, a division of Skyline Products, announced today that J & H Oil has chosen PriceAdvantage SMART Fuel Pricing as their fuel price management solution.
J & H Oil is running PriceAdvantage in the cloud, eliminating the need for their IT resources to maintain their system.
“We have been searching for ways to improve our overall pricing process, including speeding up survey collections, and eliminating price change errors. After a thorough comparison and evaluation process, including a successful pilot, we are excited to select PriceAdvantage as our retail fuels software. We elected to include PriceAdvantage because we believe it will allow us to understand market and store performance, adjust our strategies as needed, and give us the competitive edge,” said Craig Hoppen, President of J & H Oil.
“We are glad to have J & H as a cloud customer and to know that PriceAdvantage is already improving their retail fuels business,” said Chip Stadjuhar, CEO of Skyline Products. “PriceAdvantage is ideal for automating the retail fuels pricing process, and ensuring that the right price is at the right store, all the time”, Stadjuhar added.
by John Keller | Jan 3, 2014 | Customer News, Fuel Price Management Solutions, Fuel Pricing Strategy
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.”
