Suggesting that there's some conspiracy among every fuel retailer to keep prices high to satisfy their own greed is idiotic.
Any smart businessman will know that if he undercuts his competition by 2-3 cents, people will flock to his station. I've known people to EASILY burn 20 cents worth of gas just to save one cent per gallon on their 10 gallon fillup. People will go to the lowest price, so the stations will lower their price as much as possible, as long as they can still make a profit, to ensure a steady flow of business.
Now, places like WalMart/Sam'sClub, Wawa (in my area), and any other company that has a legitimate flow of non-fuel business AND immense buying power has the ability to undercut almost every company that offers fuel as their primary product. They can afford to make little to no profit on fuel, or even take a loss to undercut the competition. They can use fuel as a loss leader, bringing people into the business to get fuel, and making their profit off of the customers' other purchases. (every morning, I go to Wawa for gas and breakfast. I spend $30 on the cheapest gas in town, and then I spend $7 on breakfast that I could make myself for about $1.50.)
Any smart businessman will know that if he undercuts his competition by 2-3 cents, people will flock to his station. I've known people to EASILY burn 20 cents worth of gas just to save one cent per gallon on their 10 gallon fillup. People will go to the lowest price, so the stations will lower their price as much as possible, as long as they can still make a profit, to ensure a steady flow of business.
Now, places like WalMart/Sam'sClub, Wawa (in my area), and any other company that has a legitimate flow of non-fuel business AND immense buying power has the ability to undercut almost every company that offers fuel as their primary product. They can afford to make little to no profit on fuel, or even take a loss to undercut the competition. They can use fuel as a loss leader, bringing people into the business to get fuel, and making their profit off of the customers' other purchases. (every morning, I go to Wawa for gas and breakfast. I spend $30 on the cheapest gas in town, and then I spend $7 on breakfast that I could make myself for about $1.50.)
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