by John Keller | Jun 11, 2013 | Fuel Price Management, Fuel Price Management Solutions, Fuel Pricing Strategy, Fuel Software, Industry News
In the NACS State of the Industry Summit there were several key fuel management highlights for the 2013 year.
- Gasoline consumption is up 1.3% year over year.
- Gasoline margins are up 3.6 cents per gallon for the first 12 weeks of 2013 year over year.
- Gasoline margins were at 16.6 cents per gallon for the first 12 weeks of 2013.
- The breakeven cents-per-gallon for last year improved to 9.21 cents, a 12% improvement.
From a fuel price management perspective, it is important to compare the results in your markets to these national industry standards. Perhaps individual markets are particularly competitive with margins and cannot match some of these statistical levels, but these industry standards provide a gauge and set of key performance indicators to use for measuring success.
Using these measurements as the basis to generate reports to reveal the success of your fuel organization can be time consuming if your fuel software is based on Excel. Even the most sophisticated homegrown systems can make it difficult to access reports that show relative performance of volume and margins for comparison sake. But with PriceAdvantage fuel software, heat maps and analysis views quickly allow you to slice and dice volume and margin information to see how a market of your stores is doing relative to another market, and which stores are shining stars vs. which stores are burdens bringing down overall performance.
With this information, your PriceAdvantage fuel management software allows you to adjust marketing and fuel pricing strategies to optimize performance at the store and market level, and maximize prices across the enterprise fuel system.
by John Keller | Jun 7, 2013 | Fuel Price Optimization, Industry News, Retail Fuel Margins
OPIS reported today that retail fuel margins held steady this week dipping only $0.002 per gallon across the USA. Average retail fuel margins now stand at $0.216 per gallon. The year to date average is up slightly to $0.171 per gallon, and the Q2 average is up slightly to $0.186 per gallon. The six week average is also up slightly to $0.165 per gallon.
This is good news for fuel retailers who are in great need to recoup the low margins of early and mid May.
From a fuel software perspective, these conditions continue to drive toward the need to keep a watchful eye, to make sure competitors are held in check, and to balance the fine line between fuel volume gains and maintaining fuel margins as long as possible.
by John Keller | May 31, 2013 | Fuel Price Management Solutions, Industry News, Retail Fuel Margins
According to the latest OPIS report, retail fuel margins saw their biggest increase in 12 weeks, with a $0.094 per gallon rise. Average retail fuel margins across the USA now stand at $0.218 per gallon, the highest margins all May.
Average year to date fuel margins were up slightly to $0.169 per gallon. Quarter to date fuel margins reversed their six week trend and increased to $0.183 per gallon. The six week average for fuel margins now stands at $0.161 per gallon.
A large part of this gain in fuel margins can be attributed to the mid-west refineries coming back online so that costs can come down, allowing fuel retailers to temporarily hold steady with retail fuel pricing and recoup their lower margins seen over the past month.
But traditionally these higher margins prove to be only temporary, as fuel retailers begin to drop their prices to gain a competitive edge and gain volumes. As always, retail fuel software is critical to win this cat and mouse game, balancing volumes and margins while remaining competitive and maximizing profits.
by John Keller | May 23, 2013 | Customer News, Fuel Price Management Solutions, Industry News
Congratulations to Greg Parker, President and CEO of The Parker Companies and PriceAdvantage customer, for being named one of Georgia’s Power Players by Georgia Trend Magazine. It has been quite a year for Mr. Parker, as he was awarded Top Tech Executive at the CSNews CIO/Tech Summit in April.
The Parker Companies have been using PriceAdvantage as their fuel software to manage all aspects of their retail fuel management solution. The Parker’s fuel management system includes price change confirmation to the VeriFone POS, pumps, Skyline electronic gas price signs, and GasBuddy OpenStore. This is all made possible by the one click technology that is unique to PriceAdvantage.
The PriceAdvantage team is proud to have Parker’s as a partner and we look forward to the days ahead, as together we progress what is possible in the future of the convenience store industry.
by John Keller | May 17, 2013 | Fuel Price Management Solutions, Industry News
According to the research company IMS Research, the number of electric vehicle charging stations may reach 4.8 million worldwide by 2015. The global number of EV charging stations now stands at 75,000 according to their research. The US Department of Energy says the number of EV charging stations in the US as of this blog entry is 5,894 (a 16% increase over six months ago).
The IMS research discusses the different possible business models for the EV charging stations:
- Monthly subscriptions that drivers pay to have access to a network of EV charging stations
- Free charges for consumers who purchase other goods or services provided at the station location
- Pay-per-use like the current fuel fill-up model at c-stores
For the third business model, the IMS research found that consumers would require a quick charge. Consumers reported they were willing to pay $15-17 for a 30 minute quick charge.
From a fuel management perspective, longer term strategy thinking for the fuels analyst needs to include whether or not to offer EV charging stations. Retailers outside the c-store space are already offering charging stations and have announced plans to expand. Will you be part of this emerging business? Can you afford not to be?
by John Keller | May 17, 2013 | Fuel Software, Industry News, Retail Fuel Margins
Today’s OPIS report showed retail fuel margins dropped yet again this week. That extends the losing streak to five weeks. Retail fuel margins across the US now stand at $0.123 per gallon, down $0.021 per gallon from last week. Average retail fuel margins have lost a total of $0.145 per gallon since the streak began.
Retail fuel margins are at February levels for the second week in a row. Average retail margins year to date are now at $0.169 per gallon. Quarter to date average retail margins are at $0.186 per gallon.
These are tough times for the c-store fuel managers, especially when they are managing the balance between volumes and margins without fuel software to manage their fuel price management strategies. Every penny, every hour, matters at this point, and investing in a fuel management system is the only way to make the most of the difficult times.
