Why doesn’t the price of petrol only change when a service station receives a new delivery of fuel?
Service stations generally don’t operate on the basis of adding a margin to the wholesale price and sticking with that price until the tanks run dry and a new delivery of fuel is needed. Instead in order to stay competitive service stations may need to change the price they charge for petrol several times a day. This can mean that at low points in the discount cycle you can buy petrol for less than the service station operator has bought it for. This is possible for some operators such as franchisees as they may be offered sales rebates by their suppliers to help them meet local competition. The rebates ensure franchisees maintain their small margin while still being able to offer competitive prices. Other operators rely on higher prices on some days of the week to offset losses on deeply discounted days.
Related Questions
- If fuel prices are not real-time, could it be that the fuel prices I see at the petrol station may differ from the ones TomTom report?
- I only see one price for each station in the VZ Navigator search results screen. Which grade of fuel is being displayed?
- Why doesn’t the price of petrol only change when a service station receives a new delivery of fuel?
