by John Keller | Aug 28, 2013 | Customer News, Fuel Pricing Software, Fuel Software
The PriceAdvantage team would like to congratulate Parker’s on their grand opening of two new c-stores. These new stores bring the total Parker’s count to 32.
Parker’s rolled out PriceAdvantage with an integration to GasBuddy OpenStore, their VeriFone POS system, and Skyline electronic price signs in January of this year. Since then Parker’s has opened three new stores in just seven short months.
Greg Parker, CEO of Parker Companies said, “Parker’s stores strive to be recognized for quality products at competitive prices and now we can communicate our fuel prices faster and easier in a matter of minutes through PriceAdvantage and OpenStore, both at the store and online.”
Parker’s operates their PriceAdvantage system in the cloud, allowing them to allocate IT resources to other areas.
by Grant Garrison | Aug 26, 2013 | Fuel Price Management, Fuel Pricing Software, PriceAdvantage
Everybody’s out there looking for pennies: Fuel customers are using mobile apps and will make challenging left turns for the promise of saving just a few pennies on a fill-up. Amid this, fuel retailers look for ways to wring a few pennies of profit from the sale. It’s a game won or lost on small increments, and folks on both sides of the counter know that those pennies add up.
In the past few years, discovering the “sweet spot” that brings customers off the street and grows fuel sale volume and profit has become easier. OPIS- and PDI-integrated tools let everybody from single-store operators to chains with hundreds of locations quickly access real-time competitive data. With a click, they can know which stores or regions are underperforming. They can easily see where they’re making the most or least money and where their pricing is getting beat by competitors down the street or miles away.
Real-time insight into volume, margin, and gallon performance gives leaders the ammunition they need to formulate an agile pricing strategy—on a laptop, tablet, or smartphone. But that’s only half the battle. That price now has to go to every POS, pump, and sign in every store. And the longer it takes the more money you lose.
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by John Keller | Aug 23, 2013 | Fuel Price Optimization, Retail Fuel Margins
According to the OPIS report today, average retail fuel margins across the US ended their streak of four consecutive weekly gains, losing $0.069 per gallon this week.
Retail fuel margins across the US now stand at $0.187 per gallon. The year to date average remains at $0.182 per gallon and the six week average is now at $0.192 per gallon. For the summer season since Memorial Day, the retail fuel margin average has been $0.206.
While retail fuel margins lost ground this week, they are still a solid $0.06 higher than last year at this time.
Using PriceAdvantage, these types of statistics and comparisons are available with a few quick mouse clicks. How difficult is it to compare your retail fuel margins to these industry benchmarks using your system?
by John Keller | Aug 16, 2013 | Fuel Price Optimization, Retail Fuel Margins
The OPIS report today reveals a $0.038 increase in retail fuel margins this week. National retail fuel margins across the US now stand at an average of $0.256 per gallon, which is $0.132 above the margins for the same week one year ago, when national averages were a measly $0.124 per gallon.
The year to date average across the US now stands at $0.182 per gallon while the Q2 average is at $0.205 per gallon. The six week average stands at $0.189, and since Memorial Day the average is $0.208 per gallon.
These are proving to be the strong months of profitable margins and traditionally high summer gallons. Now is the time to make the most of these summer days in anticipation of decreasing volumes.
by John Keller | Aug 9, 2013 | Retail Fuel Margins
According to the latest OPIS report, retail fuel margins held steady this week across the US, and now stand at an average of $0.218 per gallon. That’s up $0.004 per gallon from last week, bringing the average for calendar year Q2 to $0.197. The six week average also stands at $0.197 per gallon.
These numbers reflect a healthy time of year for the c-store industry. Let’s hope the solid margins can continue through Labor Day during these summer days of high fuel volumes and into the fall.
This is the season for quarterly earnings reports, and a chance to compare national fuel margins to those reported by various c-store chains.
by John Keller | Aug 2, 2013 | Fuel Price Management Solutions, Fuel Price Optimization, Retail Fuel Margins
OPIS reported this week that average retail fuel margins across the US added to the gains of last week and increased by $0.038 to $0.214 per gallon. That makes for an $0.114 increase from just two weeks ago when retail fuel margins were at an abysmal $0.100 per gallon.
Though the increase in margins this week did not bring retail fuel averages to the levels of July 5 when margins were at the highest level of the year at $0.302 per gallon, the increase did raise year to date margins to $0.178 and the Q2 average to $0.193. The six week margin average stands at a strong $0.206 per gallon.
Considering the prediction for increased retail fuel prices by many industry analysts, margins this week didn’t suffer by any such retail fuel price rise. Hopefully retail fuel prices can remain steady throughout the summer and make for a profitable season.
by John Keller | Jul 29, 2013 | Industry News, Retail Fuel Margins
According to the latest OPIS report, retail fuel margins rebounded this week, more than making up for the margin decrease of last week.
Average retail fuel margins now stand at $0.176 per gallon across the US, up $$0.076 per gallon from last week. The average retail fuel margins year to date stand unchanged at $0.177 per gallon. The retail fuels average for July dipped slightly to $0.187 per gallon. The US six week average improved $0.004 per gallon from last week to $0.204 per gallon. Average retail fuel margins since Memorial Day are $0.201 per gallon.
As we track these industry benchmark averages in this fuel price management blog, the question is, how easy is it to use your fuel software to report the retail fuel margins of your organization for each of these time frames? In Skyline PriceAdvantage, the Margin Analysis view presents a quick way to view margins across different markets, for specified commodity products, in preset periods of time, as well as ad hoc date ranges. The results appear in real time, and then can be exported for use in management reports. It is this insight that allows you to optimize retail fuel margins and volumes, market by market, and store by store.
by John Keller | Jul 24, 2013 | Fuel Price Management, Fuel Pricing Technology, Industry News
A new Mobile Path to Purchase study based on a survey from 2000 US smart phone and tablet users reinforces the importance of fuel retailers keeping their retail fuel prices current on mobile gas price sites. Gas was the answer given for the type of search by 90% of smartphone users and 87% of tablet users who were asked why did they go to the location to make a purchase. Gas price and location were the key elements of these mobile search conversions.
Industry leader xAd and long-time partner and call measurement provider Telmetrics have partnered to release first-to-market Mobile Path-to-Purchase research studies conducted by The Nielsen Company. The studies dissect consumer mobile usage and purchase behavior related to the Travel, Restaurant, Auto, Retail, Insurance, Banking & Finance and Gas & Convenience industry verticals.
The results of these studies provide valuable insights into the mobile tools utilized in the process of research and decision, and strong mobile user intent to purchase.
“Mobile is the dominant media used in this on-the-go [gas and convenience] category and while searchers are making most decisions within an hour, they are paying attention to advertising and taking time to conduct price and location searches,” said Monica Ho, vice president of marketing at xAd.
The gas and convenience retail category has nearly a 90% conversion rate for mobile users who ultimately make a purchase. “With some of the heaviest app usage and highest conversion rates we’ve seen in our Mobile Path-to-Purchase research series, it is important that gas and convenience advertisers work with marketing providers that ensure their businesses can be found in apps in addition to mobile sites,” said Bill Dinan, president of Telmetrics. “Advertisers have a chance to drive more purchases by ensuring their mobile presence is optimized with location and pricing [information].”
From a fuel price management perspective, this study drives home the point that publishing fuel prices to the “virtual signs” on the web is critical for bringing more traffic to the store. The patented PriceAdvantage SMART fuel pricing solution provides the ability to publish gas prices to OPIS and GasBuddy so that stores appear on the gas price search apps, and display the proper prices to the mobile audience.
by John Keller | Jul 23, 2013 | Customer News, Fuel Price Management Solutions, Fuel Pricing Software
The PriceAdvantage team would like to welcome Vintners Distributors as the latest member of our partner family. Vintners Distributors selected the patented PriceAdvantage fuel price management solution to replace their third party fuels price management and optimization solution that is going away.
The Vintners Distributors fuel software solution will integrate PriceAdvantage with PDI running on the back office, and Gilbarco Passport and VeriFone Sapphire POS systems at the stores, to provide true closed loop fuel price management with confirmation. This implementation will again be a hosted fuel software solution in the cloud.
Vintners Distributors is based in Fremont, California and operates c-stores across the state of California.
by John Keller | Jul 23, 2013 | Customer News, Fuel Price Management Solutions
The PriceAdvantage team would like to offer our congratulations to Rutter’s for opening their newest location. The newest store is the largest in the Rutter’s chain, and brings the Rutter’s total store count to 58.
Rutter’s has been a long time PriceAdvantage customer, using the patented fuel pricing technology from Skyline to manage retail fuel price changes from Rutter’s headquarters to the NCR (Radiant) POS, pump, and Skyline electronic price sign. Rutter’s was an early adapter of the PriceAdvantage integration to GasBuddy OpenStore in 2011.
Scott Hartman, CEO and President of Rutter’s was inducted into the PCATS Hall of Fame in March of this year in recognition of his industry thought leadership. We look forward to our ongoing partnership with Rutter’s, and the mutual success and growth it continues to bring.
