by John Keller | Feb 29, 2016 | Customer News, Fuel Price Management, Fuel Pricing Software, Fuel Pricing Strategy, Fuel Pricing Technology, Fuel Software, PriceAdvantage
The PriceAdvantage team would like to welcome BellStores as our newest customer and partner. BellStores operates 55 convenience stores throughout Ohio.
BellStores selected PriceAdvantage so that BellStores fuel analysts can directly drive fuel price changes based on intimate knowledge of the market and BellStores corporate strategies. By establishing pre-defined store-specific strategies, BellStores can streamline and automate price changes to their VeriFone POS systems, pumps, and electronic gas price signs – allowing the fuel retailer to execute faster, more informed price changes.
Like most PriceAdvantage customers, BellStores selected the SaaS offering in the cloud for the low upfront cost, ease of implementation, and the maintenance and infrastructure cost benefits.
Doug Combs, Vice President at BellStores said “To remain competitive, we needed to replace the time-consuming manual processes of collecting competitive data and communicating new prices. PriceAdvantage will help us streamline and automate competitive surveys and posting new prices. And the fact that I can do this from my phone or tablet is really exciting.”
Welcome BellStores – we look forward to our ongoing partnership!
by John Keller | Feb 23, 2016 | Fuel Price Management, Fuel Price Management Solutions, Fuel Price Optimization, Fuel Pricing Software, Fuel Pricing Strategy, Fuel Pricing Technology, Fuel Software, Industry News, PriceAdvantage, Retail Fuel Margins
Here we are heading into the end of February and everyone in the retail fuels business knows the season of rising gas prices is just around the corner. It happens every year: refinery prices increase, wholesale costs go up, and eventually the retail fuel marketer must respond.
We’re already seeing signs of this season being upon us. According to the Lundberg Survey, the average unbranded rack price for Regular Unleaded across the US has risen over seven cents since February 10. In the Midwest, the regional unbranded rack price average has shot up almost $0.23 per gallon in ten days. Yet refiner margins are still low, and pressure to increase margins continues to build .
Demand is higher year to date than 2015. That makes sense because in 2015, total US miles traveled broke a new record at 3.1 trillion miles. That record has stood since 2007, before the recession started. This number reflects miles traveled by passenger vehicle, bus, and truck. All indications are that 2016 will continue with similar numbers.
What does this mean to the Retail Fuel Manager? I recently spoke with one of our customers who manage a large number of locations across a number of dramatically different markets. He said that as he sees big increases in wholesale cost like what has happened recently in the Midwest, he’s faced with playing a game of chicken. Retailers are looking at each other to see who is going to move first. In order to be most effective in this retail fuel pricing game, you must go beyond simply responding to replacement cost and competitor price changes. You must have access to retail fuel pricing software that quickly shows you historical fuels volume performance for a store and market, compared to budget targets. You must be able to quickly see actual fuels margins store by store and across a region. You must be able to track past history of your prices vs. competitor prices, to get a sense of typically who moves first. And of course, the best retail fuel pricing strategy is a well executed fuel pricing strategy: once you determine the proper price for each grade at each location, you must be able to execute those prices out to the street across all locations.
One could say that recently it was relatively easy to make money in retail fuels because of falling wholesales prices and healthy margins. But as we head into the spring, this is when times get tougher and it takes more insight and faster response times to maximize retail fuel and overall store profits.
by John Keller | Sep 3, 2015 | Fuel Price Management, Fuel Price Optimization, Industry News
AAA is predicting that this Labor Day weekend we’ll see the highest travel miles in seven years. The prediction is for a 1% increase over last year, and the fifth consecutive increase in miles traveled by automobile this holiday weekend. The weekend officially starts Thursday September 3 and concludes Monday September 7.
More details can be found on CSPNet.com here.
Timing for these high travel mile numbers couldn’t be better for fuel retailers since according to the latest OPIS retail fuel margins on NACS Daily, fuel margins are up 0.159 per gallon this week to a whopping 0.345 per gallon. Even the midwest seems to have recovered from the refinery outage that caused retail fuel prices to skyrocket and fuel margins to plummet.
From a fuel price management perspective, this is a key money making weekend, where fuel pricing software is key for keeping an eye on competitors, volumes, and margins in order to make the best of the opportunity.
by John Keller | Jul 20, 2015 | Customer News, Fuel Price Management Solutions, Fuel Pricing Technology, Fuel Software, PriceAdvantage
The PriceAdvantage team would like to welcome our newest customer and partner, Star Fuels, to the PriceAdvantage family.
Star Fuels operates 65 convenience stores throughout Texas, and they elected the PriceAdvantage SaaS offering in the cloud for the low upfront cost, ease of implementation, and the maintenance and infrastructure cost benefits. The Star Fuels implementation includes the Gilbarco and VeriFone POS systems.
Bob Kastetter, COO of Star Fuels, says PriceAdvantage will allow them to be much more responsive to market changes, and free up staff time to manage other business critical duties.
Welcome Star Fuels – we look forward to our ongoing partnership!
by John Keller | Jul 10, 2015 | Customer News, Fuel Price Management, Fuel Pricing Technology, Fuel Software, Industry News
Longtime PriceAdvantage and Skyline sign customer Parker’s announced the release of their new mobile app built by Zingon LLC. Among other things, the mobile app displays fuel prices at each of their locations. The Parker’s implementation of this mobile app includes an automated fuel price feed from PriceAdvantage to make sure gas prices are always accurate. Convenience Store Decisions reported the story here.
“Our customers told us they wanted an easy-to-use app that would enable them to access gas prices and Parker’s information at their convenience,” said Greg Parker, Parker’s president and CEO. “This new app represents our fast, fresh and friendly culture. It makes it easier than ever for Parker’s customers to see the best deals on gas prices and our specials on other products.”
Zingon mobile apps are available on both Android and iOS. The apps are designed to be easy to use and to eliminate carrying all the individual elements for store chains: Credit Card, Loyalty Card, Clipped Coupons and a phone to look up store locations and gas prices. Read more about Zingon here.
by John Keller | Jul 9, 2015 | Fuel Price Management, Fuel Pricing Strategy, Industry News
The US Energy Information Administration in their July Short Term Energy Outlook projects increased fuel volumes again this year. The full US EIA STEO report can be found here.
In the tug of war between ongoing increased fuel efficiency of new vehicles driving fuels demand down, and employment growth and lower fuel prices that drive fuels demand up, the US EIA projects that employment growth and lower fuel prices will continue to win and pull up volume demand in 2015.
In 2014, motor gasoline consumption rose by 80,000 b/d. In 2015 the US EIA projects that growth to be over twice as much, or 170,000 b/d (1.9%). But looking ahead to 2016, the US EIA says higher prices and increased fuel efficiency will reverse the two year trend, projecting a decrease in gasoline consumption by 20,000 b/d (0.2%). Still, if that projection proves to be accurate, demand in 2016 will be 150,000 b/d higher than 2014 and 230,000 b/d higher than 2013.
Consumption of distillate fuel, which includes diesel fuel and heating oil, is forecast to rise 2.3% or 90,000 b/d in 2015 and by 1.7% or 70,000 b/d in 2016. This growth is driven by increasing manufacturing output, foreign trade, and marine fuel use.
From a fuel price management perspective, this volume growth is a welcome respite from the many years of volume declines. While it’s certain that volumes like this cannot last forever, this report points to the urgency to make hay while the sun shines and take advantage of the opportunity at hand.
