by John Keller | Sep 12, 2014 | Fuel Price Management, Fuel Pricing Software, Fuel Pricing Technology, Fuel Software, Industry News
The Pinnacle Summit 2014 event in Dallas this week provided the perfect venue for Pinnacle customers to learn more about the upcoming multi-faceted PriceAdvantage integration. Response to the integration announcement was overwhelmingly positive.
The Pinnacle integration is scheduled for release in Q4 of this year and includes the following elements:
- Pinnacle Palm POS: PriceAdvantage price changes can be executed at the Palm POS. This is now the sixth POS system that works with PriceAdvantage.
- Pinnacle Palm POS: PriceAdvantage receives periodic volume feeds from the Pinnacle tank monitor web service to allow fuel analysts to see fuel sales in near-realtime and make adjustments to fuel pricing strategies throughout the day; get aggressive with margins to make up lost volumes from the morning so as to regain those volumes during the evening commute; leave prices alone if volumes remain strong despite competitive market moves downward.
- Pinnacle Manager Workstation: PriceAdvantage collects fuel and merchandise sales by store for performance reporting to understand customer profiles and market trends in consumer behavior. These kinds of reports can help understand whether or not, and to what degree, fuel sales impact in-store sales.
The folks at Pinnacle are working closely with the PriceAdvantage team, and the upcoming solution promises to be very powerful.
by John Keller | Sep 5, 2014 | Fuel Price Management, Industry News, Retail Fuel Margins
The OPIS report today showed the average retail fuel margin across the US dropped again this week, making it the fourth consecutive decrease, and the fifth in six weeks.
The average retail fuel margin now stands at $0.195 per gallon, down $0.016 per gallon since last week. The year to date average held steady at $0.185, while the Q3 average dropped slightly to $0.240 per gallon. The six week average took a hit as well, decreasing to $0.235 per gallon.
The average retail margin this week still stands $.014 above the equivalent Friday last year. But in 2013, we saw three weeks of margin gains through September, rising a total of $0.111 per gallon. We can only hope we’ll see a similar trend this year.
by John Keller | Sep 5, 2014 | Customer News, Fuel Price Management, Fuel Pricing Software, Fuel Pricing Technology, Industry News, PriceAdvantage
There’s a great article on CNBC about how “mom and pop shops are flying to the cloud“, explaining how small businesses are now able to leverage cloud technology and bypass large infrastructure investments to level the playing field against much larger companies.
Nowhere are we seeing better examples of this than in the c-store industry, where c-store chains of 100 stores and under are using PriceAdvantage for fuel price management.
Back in early January of 2012, Parker’s was an early adapter of PriceAdvantage in the cloud, managing retail fuel pricing for their stores. Then it was Volta Oil in June of 2012 for their 60 stores, followed by Flyers Energy for all their locations in December, 2012. Then in 2013 it was five more c-store chains deploying PriceAdvantage in the cloud, including Kocolene, Family Express, Slidell Oil’s Purple Cow Stores, Vintners Distributors, and Sam’s Mart.
In 2014 we’ve added several more PriceAdvantage customers to our cloud environment, including Pic-n-Pac, Speedy Q Markets, J & H Oil, and Kwik Chek Food Stores.
Our cloud customers love that they can leave the infrastructure setup to the PriceAdvantage team, and have their fuel price management solution up and running so quickly. Upgrades to new versions are a snap as well, and require little to no IT resources on their end. And since all our cloud customers are using Rackspace servers, we can all trust that the data is safe and secure.
Gone are the days when only the largest companies can afford the investment required to install and maintain a robust fuel price management system. The cloud solution of PriceAdvantage with Rackspace makes it affordable to everyone.
by John Keller | Aug 30, 2014 | Customer News, Fuel Price Management, Fuel Pricing Strategy, Industry News, PriceAdvantage
The Syracuse Post-Standard newspaper interviewed Kim Bowers, the CEO of CST Brands, which recently acquired the chain of Nice N Easy stores in New York. The full interview can be found here.
Ms. Bowers’ daughter attends Hamilton College and frequented the local Nice N Easy store. Her daughter would often email photos of the store to her mom and tell her how much she liked it.
Ms. Bowers’ said CST Brands was attracted to the change because Nice N Easy had such great community involvement, and outstanding customer support. She said Nice N Easy customers should expect no changes, other than some more product offerings from the CST Brands private label brand “Fresh Choices”. The CEO said that at CST Brands it’s common for the customer to come inside the store because of the relationship they have with the people inside the store.
From a fuel price management perspective, this customer service focus and attention to the community plays into strategies that may not need to provide the lowest fuel prices in town. Customers are willing to by fuel at stores they like – just like the old saying goes “People do business with people who they like to do business with.”
by John Keller | Aug 26, 2014 | Fuel Price Management, Industry News, Retail Fuel Margins
According to OPIS, the current retail fuel margin average dipped $0.012 per gallon this week to $0.223. That makes the second consecutive weekly fuel margin decrease, but keeps the year to date average trending upward for the past eight weeks.
The current year to date average stands at $0.184, while the Q3 average dipped to $0.249 and the six week average remained relatively unchanged at $0.262.
The average retail fuel margin currently stands $0.036 per gallon above the comparable week last year.
From a fuel price management perspective, we’re starting to see margins erode as we enter the end of the busy summer travel season, but still remain strong throughout the quarter. Last year the retail fuel margin trended up approximately $0.10 per gallon this equivalent week through the end of September. Let’s hope retail fuel margins will rebound as we enter next month and finish off the quarter strong.
by John Keller | Aug 26, 2014 | Customer News, Fuel Price Management, Industry News
As reported by Convenience Store Decisions, Parker’s was just named one of the fastest growing companies according to Inc. Magazine. This is the third consecutive year Parker’s has made the list. That is an honor shared by companies like Intuit, Zappos, and Pandora.
“This celebrated achievement is a testament to our employees and the trust and confidence that our customers and business partners have placed in us,” said Parker’s CEO Greg Parker. “This phenomenal growth is only possible as the result of a coordinated team effort.”
The PriceAdvantage team is proud to have Parker’s as a customer and business partner, and we look forward to our ongoing success.
