Petrol stations docking staff pay for drive offs

[Akzle]

they could stop drive offs by having a staff member on the forcourt at all times. as well as a till jockey to sell the lollies coffees etc, put the service back into "service station"

those fucking assholes at shell have cost me two petrol caps. service, yeah right.

they could stop driveoffs by having an RFID chip embedded in your head that clicks on when you come in and is deactivated once you've paid - the signal lowers the tyre spikes as you leave, unless you haven't paid.

or, a guy with a shotgun. or, you know, police that actually work.

[Madness]

"So if petrol cost $2 a litre, just more than 92c would be tax." From that article.

You can read then? Excellent.

[R650R]

This talk of no profits on fuel sales is an industry perpetuated myth turned into urban legend by last media and people who cant count.

Back when I worked in one, petrol was 80c a litre and the margin was about 7%. I would expect today it would be similar or slightly lower but it DOESN"T matter for the following.

Lets say station x sells 10,000 litres a week at $2 a litre with a net profit of 5%, that's $1000 of pure profit in 7 days.
The station then spends $19,000 of the weekly $20,000 takings to buy another 10,000L and the cycle continues. So that $19,000 of initial capital is tied up buying fuel for the whole year, but over the course of the year it generates $52,000 in pure profit.
Its just like the supermarkets, there is a fine margin and the occasional loss leader but the turnover is huge and very fast.
Compare this to a motorbike shop that might buy a 1199 Pangiale Corsa SP wholsesale for $19,000 but take the whole year or longer to sell it at the retail of $71,000 (lets used that just to keep the numbers common.
Now whoses rolling in the cash, the servo or the bike shop????

[Ocean1]

This talk of no profits on fuel sales is an industry perpetuated myth turned into urban legend by last media and people who cant count.

Back when I worked in one, petrol was 80c a litre and the margin was about 7%. I would expect today it would be similar or slightly lower

I don't know when you worked in one, possible when they were pretty much all owned by the big oil co's, who couldn't give a shit whether they made their profit at wholesale or retail. Now they do, and the retail margin is 3%.

Lets say station x sells 10,000 litres a week at $2 a litre with a net profit of 5%, that's $1000 of pure profit in 7 days.
The station then spends $19,000 of the weekly $20,000 takings to buy another 10,000L and the cycle continues. So that $19,000 of initial capital is tied up buying fuel for the whole year, but over the course of the year it generates $52,000 in pure profit.

Fucking luxury eh? Almost enough to pay a minimum wage teller. But not the rent. Or anything else. In fact once your overheads are paid your numbers represent a huge loss, don't they?

Could it be that your concept of "profit" could do with some work?

[R650R]

I don't know when you worked in one, possible when they were pretty much all owned by the big oil co's, who couldn't give a shit whether they made their profit at wholesale or retail. Now they do, and the retail margin is 3%.



Fucking luxury eh? Almost enough to pay a minimum wage teller. But not the rent. Or anything else. In fact once your overheads are paid your numbers represent a huge loss, don't they?

Could it be that your concept of "profit" could do with some work?

Nearly 20 years ago, privately owned station.
Sole charge so only me and the boss on opposite shifts, Prob a $1000 a week would have covered both of our wages.
Prob sold roughly 15-20,000L of petrol a week and a lot of trucks and rural mini tankers so 20,000L of diesel easy.
Industrial area so we used o sell plenty of bread, milk pies etc.
Owned by a larger business in associated work but certainly turned a profit easily.

Those new bigger sites would have a huge volume of turnover (remember how they colluded to shut down all the smaller sites) so even if you pumped 3% margin into my proof of concept calculations above and bumped the numbers to 50,000 litres or more there would still be profit on the petrol side.
There supermarkets like pak n save wouldn't have gone near installing their own greenfield site fuel pumps if there was no money in it.

[pete376403]

Pak 'n' Save etc might be running the fuel side at low or even no profit in order to get people to purchase from the supermarket. Also the PnS pumps are all prepay / self serve so they are never going to have the problem of docking employees pay for drive offs.

[R650R]

Pak 'n' Save etc might be running the fuel side at low or even no profit in order to get people to purchase from the supermarket. Also the PnS pumps are all prepay / self serve so they are never going to have the problem of docking employees pay for drive offs.

Even at manned sites petrol driveoffs are a pittance compared to daily turnover. Its like that argument that shoplifters (scummy thieves that they are) cause higher grocery prices, NO they don't.
Prices are set by supply and demand and at the higher end of the range tolerated by the local buying public.
PaknSave fuel pump price as about the same as the servos even with the discounts as a lot of them end up being interchangeable or have arrangements with other servos.
Groceries is big business and the old boys club would not be bothering with such huge investment expense in new pumps and real estate not to mention the massive fines under OSH if anything goes wrong with hazardous sites, if there was no money in it.
Yes theres the occasional big discount offered just like they do with other products some times as loss leaders but usually its at full retail price (inflated to cover the usual 6c discounts).
And murphys law you've already filled the tank when those big 35cents of per litre vouchers come out.

From another angle look at something like McDonalds. Low priced product, sold from prime real estate sites and with a heavy staff wage burden.
But the stores turn a tidy profit as stock/ingrediants purchased gets sold/turned over at a very fast rate.

[Scuba_Steve]

Robot maintenance is a skilled job, not manual labor. And other robots would build the robots initially, obviously

Engineers aren't academics either, engies tend to do things...

like delivering fuel at petrol stations?
I know 1 of the stations (think it might be Caltex) call their staff "fuel delivery engineers", another (think Mobil) call em "customer service technicians"

[Woodman]

Even at manned sites petrol driveoffs are a pittance compared to daily turnover. Its like that argument that shoplifters (scummy thieves that they are) cause higher grocery prices, NO they don't.

Yes they do.

Shrinkage will be in the budget of every retailer which will make up a component of the desired margin.

[R650R]

Yes they do.

Shrinkage will be in the budget of every retailer which will make up a component of the desired margin.

Its likely included in the accounting for tax write offs as every penny counts to profit driven big business but the real world reality is its an insignificant cost and to think we would have cheaper groceries if shoplifters stopped is laughable.
It would be a fraction of the cost compared to the meat and produce that is thrown out due to best before dates etc...

[Woodman]

Its likely included in the accounting for tax write offs as every penny counts to profit driven big business but the real world reality is its an insignificant cost and to think we would have cheaper groceries if shoplifters stopped is laughable.
It would be a fraction of the cost compared to the meat and produce that is thrown out due to best before dates etc...

Have you ever read a budget or p and L?

[bogan]

like delivering fuel at petrol stations?
I know 1 of the stations (think it might be Caltex) call their staff "fuel delivery engineers", another (think Mobil) call em "customer service technicians"

Fault diagnosing and servicing robotics is a bit more of a skilled job than, retail...

Caltex can fuck right off, we don't even like when the hairys call themselves engineers

[FJRider]

It would be a fraction of the cost compared to the meat and produce that is thrown out due to best before dates etc...

It's not thrown out .... where do you think the "In house" baked produce ingredients come from ... "Fresh" stuff ..

As long as the "Ingredients" are used before the best by dates ...

[GrayWolf]

like delivering fuel at petrol stations?
I know 1 of the stations (think it might be Caltex) call their staff "fuel delivery engineers", another (think Mobil) call em "customer service technicians"

so that would make Akzle's Doctor an

Arsehole Technician?

[Akzle]

so that would make Akzle's Doctor an

Arsehole Technician?

thanks, i'll let her know she's been promoted