by John Keller | Feb 22, 2012 | Industry News
The Federal Highway Administration reported that in 2011 Americans drove 35.7 billion miles fewer than in 2010. That’s a decline of 1.2%. The first half of 2011 showed a 1% decline, while the second half showed a 1.4% decline.
From a fuel price management perspective, the decline in miles driven helps explain the overall decline in fuel gallons sold. On a national level, the market for fuel continues to be more and more competitive. Fuel pricing strategies need to be a key focus in order to maintain optimized profits at each store and across all markets.
by John Keller | Feb 21, 2012 | Fuel Price Management, Industry News
According to the latest US Energy Information Administration report, the Rocky Mountain fuel prices remain the lowest in the US, $0.37 lower than the next lowest region.
Average unleaded fuel prices in the Rocky Mountain region are at $3.097 while in the Midwest region, average unleaded fuel prices are $3.464. Average unleaded fuel prices in the West Coast region are at $3.896.
by John Keller | Feb 15, 2012 | Industry News, PriceAdvantage
Skyline Products would like to congratulate Parker’s on their new South Carolina c-store. We’re proud to have Parker’s as a PriceAdvantage fuel price management customer. Parker’s uses PriceAdvantage in the cloud to manage fuel prices and monitor company-wide fuels performance down to the store level.
by John Keller | Feb 13, 2012 | Fuel Price Management Solutions, Fuel Pricing Strategy, Industry News, Retail Fuel Margins
Demand for ethanol fuel has dropped off dramatically since the tax credit expired earlier this year. The $.45 tax credit for ethanol fuel expired January 1, 2012.
In addition, an unfavorable currency exchange with Brazil has helped add to the overall ethanol fuel surpluses at plants across Iowa.
As demand wanes, and surpluses accrue, wholesale prices will have to adapt. We’ll keep an eye on the retail fuel pricing result. In the meantime, from a fuel price management perspective, expect lower ethanol fuel volume sales to be less than last year.
The Des Moines Register article reporting on the drop in ethanol fuel demand can be found here.
by John Keller | Feb 13, 2012 | Industry News, Retail Fuel Margins
In today’s US Energy Information Administration “Today’s Gasoline Prices” report, the Rocky Mountain region shows average fuel prices for Regular Unleaded are $0.33 per gallon lower than the next lowest region. In the Rocky Mountains, average fuel prices for Regular Unleaded are $3.071 per gallon, compared to the Midwest region which is the next lowest region with Regular Unleaded fuel price averages of $3.407 per gallon.
As usual, the West Coast region has fuel prices where average Regular Unleaded is priced at $3.727.
by John Keller | Feb 10, 2012 | Fuel Pricing Software, Industry News, PriceAdvantage
Longtime PriceAdvantage customer Fikes Wholesale, operating the c-store chain CEFCO Convenience Stores, had the highest percentage growth of store count across the entire convenience store industry from December 2010 to December 2011.
According to Convenience Store News, the company’s store count grew by 57.6% in 2011. Fikes added 72 stores during that time period, 71 of which were acquisitions. In January 2012, Fikes added another 63 stores, bringing the total to 257 stores across seven states.
Skyline Products is proud to have Fikes Wholesale fully deployed with PriceAdvantage for all CEFCO stores, bringing each group of new stores onto the PriceAdvantage solution within weeks of each acquisition. Key to the Fikes strategy is to immediately use PriceAdvantage Web for the newly acquired stores so they can quickly calculate new fuel prices and view daily fuel volumes and fuel margins at each store. Importing legacy store data from the old systems allows Fikes to see the history of each store. Then over the course of several weeks Fikes implements PriceAdvantage Enterprise to allow full control of fuel price changes to the signs, POS and pumps. Since both PriceAdvantage Web and PriceAdvantage Enterprise use the same database, there is 100% data continuity through the transition.
You can read the full Convenience Store News article < a href="http://www.csnews.com/top-story-fikes_wholesale_among_industry_s_top_growers-60461.html">here.
