by John Keller | Mar 5, 2014 | Customer News, Fuel Pricing Software, Fuel Pricing Strategy, Fuel Pricing Technology, Fuel Software
PriceAdvantage, a division of Skyline Products, announced today that J & H Oil has chosen PriceAdvantage SMART Fuel Pricing as their fuel price management solution.
J & H Oil is running PriceAdvantage in the cloud, eliminating the need for their IT resources to maintain their system.
“We have been searching for ways to improve our overall pricing process, including speeding up survey collections, and eliminating price change errors. After a thorough comparison and evaluation process, including a successful pilot, we are excited to select PriceAdvantage as our retail fuels software. We elected to include PriceAdvantage because we believe it will allow us to understand market and store performance, adjust our strategies as needed, and give us the competitive edge,” said Craig Hoppen, President of J & H Oil.
“We are glad to have J & H as a cloud customer and to know that PriceAdvantage is already improving their retail fuels business,” said Chip Stadjuhar, CEO of Skyline Products. “PriceAdvantage is ideal for automating the retail fuels pricing process, and ensuring that the right price is at the right store, all the time”, Stadjuhar added.
by John Keller | Feb 28, 2014 | Retail Fuel Margins
According to today’s OPIS weekly report, average retail fuel margins rebounded ever so slightly this week to $0.134 per gallon. That’s a $0.006 improvement from last week.
The year to date average now stands at $0.160 per gallon, and the six week average is also $0.160.
For the first time this year, the current retail fuel margin average is lower this week than the equivalent week last year. In 2013, the average retail fuel margin was exactly $.03 higher, at $0.164 per gallon. Let’s hope the increase in margins continues through the rest of Q1.
by John Keller | Feb 24, 2014 | Customer News, Fuel Price Management Solutions, Fuel Pricing Software
PriceAdvantage, a division of Skyline Products, announced today that Pic-n-Pac Convenience Stores has licensed PriceAdvantage SMART™ Fuel Pricing, a fuel price management solution, for their 15 stores in Texas. Pic-n-Pac will use PriceAdvantage on a subscription basis for a fully integrated fuel price management offering.
“Pic-n-Pac competes with some of the largest retailers in the country and we needed help to level the playing field. We feel that PriceAdvantage is the perfect solution as it will help us become more efficient in our daily operations by streamlining and automating our process for determining and implementing new fuel prices,” said Phil Wuest, Director of Operations of Pic-n-Pac.
“We welcome Pic-n-Pac to our family of customers and are eager to help them improve their fuel pricing processes,” said Chip Stadjuhar, CEO of Skyline Products. “PriceAdvantage SMART Fuel Pricing will help them evaluate pricing from headquarters, giving them the data to make informed pricing decisions rapidly.”
Stadjuhar adds, “PriceAdvantage SMART Fuel Pricing, a fully scalable solution, is as effective for a small growing chain of 15 stores as it is for a national chain with thousands of locations.”
Pic-n-Pac Convenience Stores is a privately held, family owned and operated business. Headquartered in McQueeney, TX, Pic-n-Pac is approaching its 50th year anniversary. The first convenience store was opened in 1964 and was the vision of our company’s founder, Harvey Edward Wuest. Today, the company has grown to 15 locations serving customers in Guadalupe, Comal and Caldwell counties.
by John Keller | Feb 21, 2014 | Retail Fuel Margins
According to OPIS, the average retail fuel margin across the US dropped again this week. That’s the fourth consecutive weekly drop and the retail fuel margin average is now at its lowest since January 3.
The average retail fuel margin now stands at $0.128 per gallon, off $0.018 per gallon from last week, and almost $.05 per gallon since the trend began on January 31. The year to date average is $0.164 and the six week average is $0.168 per gallon.
Last year the retail fuel margin average was $0.102 per gallon. We can only hope that retail fuel margins turn around quickly.
by John Keller | Feb 21, 2014 | Fuel Price Optimization, Industry News
According to Convenience Store News, an increasing number of grocers are entering the retail fuels business. Many grocers see the fuels business as a way to compete against the much larger national retail chains like HEB and Walmart. Grocers also see fuels as a way to build strong relationships with customers, for example, tie-ins between grocery items on promotion and fuel incentives.
What does this mean to the retail fuel manager? It means the retail fuel manager has to constantly be on guard, watching to see if a new competitor is changing the market landscape by slicing the retail fuel volume pie into smaller pieces. It means competitor survey prices need to be carefully analyzed to make sure they are truly comparable, without any kind of embedded reward discount that may throw off competitive price analysis. And it means it’s increasingly important to maximize overall store profitability both on the forecourt and in-store.
PriceAdvantage offers a powerful report that allows the fuel manager to view in-store merchandise sales overlayed on top of retail fuel sales so you can quickly see the effectiveness of both fuel and in-store promotions. The report is a Volume Correlation report and allows you to see store by store, or by market, the elasticity between forecourt transactions and in-store purchases. It is this type of information that allows you to be most profitable in this ever increasingly competitive landscape.
by John Keller | Feb 21, 2014 | Fuel Price Management, Industry News, Retail Fuel Margins
According to an excellent article written by Samantha Oller, Senior Editor of CSPNet.com, January retail fuel margins in 2014 varied widely across the different US geographic regions.
The highest margins in January 2014 could be found in the Midwest at 16.4 cents per gallon. In Texas, the retail fuel margins were lowest at 14.2 cents per gallon. In the Southeast, retail fuel margins were right in the middle at 15.2 cents per gallon.
The article cites Raymond James & Associates as well as OPIS as their source. The Raymond James & Associates research is based on their survey of a select group of c-store chains and fuel distributors: Casey’s General Stores, CST Brands Inc., Murphy USA Inc., The Pantry Inc., Susser Holdings Corp., TravelCenters of America, Susser Petroleum and LeHigh Gas Partners.
According to the 2014 NACS Fuels Report, on average, it costs a retailer about 12 to 16 cents to sell a gallon of gasoline. That means January has allowed retailers to start the year off in positive retail margin territory. Unfortunately, it is typically the month of February when we start seeing downward pressures on retail fuel margins as we head into the spring. Hopefully the c-store retail industry can cling to these margins in the coming months.
by John Keller | Feb 20, 2014 | Fuel Price Management, Industry News, Retail Fuel Margins
In early February I wrote a blog entry about how retail fuel margins in January 2014 were stronger than in January 2013. I based this conclusion using weekly OPIS reports from this year and last. You can find that blog entry here.
On February 20, Samantha Oller, Sr. Editor of CSPNet.com, wrote an article about a similar conclusion. Her article Fuel Margins Hit 7-Year High for January uses a research note by Raymond James & Associates. The research note shows that retail fuel margins in January 2014 averaged 18.5 cents per gallon (CPG) for regular unleaded, a 39% improvement year over year.
The OPIS weekly retail margin report uses a different approach than Raymond James & Associates. The Raymond James & Associates research is based solely on a survey of a select group of c-store chains and fuel distributors: Casey’s General Stores, CST Brands Inc., Murphy USA Inc., The Pantry Inc., Susser Holdings Corp., TravelCenters of America, Susser Petroleum and LeHigh Gas Partners. The other significant difference between the two reports is that OPIS reports the overall average of all fuels on a weekly basis, while Raymond James & Associates focuses only on regular unleaded and for the entire month of January.
Whether you use the Raymond James & Associates research, or the OPIS weekly reports as a baseline, this information is a good cross check comparison for your January margins.
by John Keller | Feb 14, 2014 | Industry News, Retail Fuel Margins
In the OPIS report this week, the US average retail fuel margin dropped another $0.032 per gallon to $0.146 per gallon. That’s a net loss of $0.046 per gallon from the most recent high three weeks ago back on January 24 when average retail margins stood at $0.192 per gallon. Current retail margins are at the second lowest level of the year, only slightly higher than on January 3 when they were at $0.112 per gallon.
The year to date average dropped to $0.169 per gallon, while the six week average was up slightly to $0.178 per gallon. This week last year retail fuel margin averages were at $0.122 per gallon.
Last year February margins bounced in the $0.08 – $0.12 range, jumping to $0.22 per gallon at the end of March. Hopefully we’ll see a repeat performance in 2014, and finish the quarter strong.
by John Keller | Feb 7, 2014 | Fuel Pricing Software, Industry News, Retail Fuel Margins
OPIS reported this week that the average retail fuels margin remained steady since last week. Retail fuel margins across the US averaged $0.178 per gallon, compared to $0.179 last week. The year to date average ticked up $0.001 per gallon to $0.173 and the six week average jumped $.007 per gallon to $0.173 per gallon.
Our industry is in much better shape retail fuels margin-wise this year than last year. Consider that the average retail fuels margin is now $0.089 per gallon higher than the $0.084 national average across the US in 2013. That means retail fuel margins in the US are now double what they were this week last year.
According to the 2013 NACS Fuels Report, the industry switch over process from winter blend fuels to summer blend fuels begins in February, beginning with scheduled refinery shutdowns for maintenance. And that means an increase in wholesale cost to the fuels retailer, a cost increase that is not easily welcomed by the consumer. And that puts the squeeze on margins this time of year. Add all that up, and we can anticipate an increasingly competitive market for the rest of Q1, with difficult fuel margins, possibly in the negative range.
In 2013 we saw this trend where average retail fuel margins dropped one cent from February 1 to February 22, ending the month at $0.102 per gallon. That’s negative margin territory for many fuel retailers. Luckily this year our higher margin levels should keep us in positive territory, though that doesn’t mean we can rest easy in these coming weeks.
by John Keller | Feb 3, 2014 | Fuel Price Management, Fuel Software, Industry News, Retail Fuel Margins
According to the OPIS US retail fuel margins data, January 2014 was much stronger than January 2013. And for many retailers, that may mean the difference between making money and losing money on fuels.
The average retail fuel margins for January this year were $0.172 per gallon compared to $0.148 per gallon last year, a difference of $.024 per gallon.
That may not seem like a big difference, but according to the 2014 NACS Fuels Report, on average, it costs a retailer about 12 to 16 cents to sell a gallon of gasoline. That means the difference between retail fuel margin averages in January this year and last year is the difference between profit and loss. Such is the life of the retail fuels manager: always dancing on that fuels margin razor’s edge between making money and losing money on the largest product category in the c-store industry.
The retail fuels business truly is a game of pennies, or even fractions of a penny. But in order to stay in business, it’s not just a game, it’s a war game, requiring the best possible toolsets and processes to squeeze every fraction of a cent out of every gallon, every day, at every store.
Don’t just take our word for it – listen to what NACS has to say: “Over the course of a year, retail profits (or even losses) on fuels can vary wildly. In some cases, a few great weeks can make up for an otherwise dreadful year — or vice versa.”
Does your retail fuels software allow you to quickly compare store and market performance to these national benchmarks? Does your retail fuels software allow you to quickly make adjustments to execute the optimized price at every store, at every location, every hour of every day? If it doesn’t, that’s OK, it simply means you’re not using PriceAdvantage. And if you’re not using PriceAdvantage, you’re not equipping yourself with the best technology available on the market. And that means you’re simply operating at a competitive disadvantage in this game of war.
