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 | Mar 29, 2010 | Industry News, PriceAdvantage
Skyline Products announced that the PriceAdvantage fuel pricing software group has been spun off to form a separate division of the company.
“When we began developing this software 6½ years ago, most convenience stores didn’t have an Internet connection and most of them were still processing credit-card transactions through a dial-up modem,” McHugh said Monday. “We used to have to tell customers at that time why they should automate, but now we simply tell them about our product and convince them it is the right answer to solve the problem they are having, changing fuel prices efficiently.”
“We have had potential customers tell us that they are lucky to get prices changed in a third of their stores in one day. This can do it all in one morning,” said Greg Stadjuhar, Skyline’s vice president of sales and marketing and co-owner. The software is used by chains such as Royal Farms and Sheetz.
Read the newspaper coverage of the announcement here.
by John Keller | Mar 29, 2010 | Fuel Price Management, Industry News, PriceAdvantage
The PriceAdvantage division of Skyline Products was featured in the Gazette Telegraph, the local newspaper of Colorado Springs . The article titled “Company seeks to make changing fuel prices easier for retailers” appeared in the March 29, 2010 edition. Featured in the story are Aaron McHugh, Director of the PriceAdvantage Division, and Greg Stadjuhar, Vice President of Sales and Marketing and co-owner of Skyline Products.
The article may be found here.
by John Keller | Mar 9, 2010 | Fuel Price Optimization, Fuel Pricing Strategy, Industry News, Retail Fuel Margins
On the cover of USA Today March 9, 2010 there’s an article proclaiming that fuel prices will rise to $3/gallon this spring. The article references sources as “oil and gas analysts”, including OPIS and the Energy Information Administration. The article explains that American consumers should expect to see fuel prices rise according to the standard seasonal cycle every spring.
This means Fuel Managers can expect their c-store markets to be willing to pay more for fuel in the upcoming months. Fuel pricing strategies should include this consumer expectation.
by John Keller | Feb 10, 2010 | Fuel Price Optimization, Fuel Pricing Technology, Industry News, Retail Fuel Margins
The new RNCOS “U.S. Convenience Stores Market Outlook to 2013” report states that the U.S. Convenience Store industry is likely to grow steadily in the next four years. This healthy outlook is largely due to the steady increase of the size of the population who are 15-64 years of age, a population concerned with convenience shopping.
According to the new research report, sales in the convenience store (c-store) industry grew an impressive 8% in 2008 and made up approximately 14% of total US retail sales.
In 2009, the c-store industry struggled along with the whole US Retail industry, due to weak consumer spending and a drop in fuel prices. But in late 2009, c-stores seemed to bounce back, and the report states that in 2010 industry sales will be healthy, outpacing the country’s overall retail sales growth.
The c-store industry grew just over 54% in 2008 over 2007 to a total of $5.2 Billion. The total c-store sales number is split between motor fuel sales of 72% and in-store sales of 28% during 2008.
That means the US Fuel Manager is overseeing $3.74 Billion in total sales. This kind of responsibility demands software technology that can allow fuel pricing decisions to be implemented quickly, without risk of human error. It’s simply too big a job to be managed with homegrown spreadsheets.
Thankfully, the Fuel Pricing software category has come of age, making available information that is impossible to glean from spreadsheets. And with Fuel Pricing software like PriceAdvantage from vendors like Skyline Products, Fuel Managers can react quickly to dynamic market conditions and maximize their revenue potential on a store by store basis.
by John Keller | Feb 3, 2010 | Fuel Pricing Technology, Industry News
NACSOnline reported a gas station in Avondale Ohio accidentally had posted a price of $.27 a gallon on their sign, without their employees’ knowledge.
The price continued for 2.5 hours, and customers drove as far as 175 miles to take advantage of the low fuel price. The store employees didn’t notice the low price until customers started paying with cash. No word on how much money was lost during that day.
This is the Fuel Manager’s worst nightmare. And who is to say it couldn’t happen again if the store headquarters isn’t using Fuel Pricing software to monitor the current price of the sign? With the Fuel Pricing technology available today, there’s no reason why a station or c-store would ever have to go through this agony of selling fuel at such a loss.
You can read the article here.