By The Way...

Wednesday, July 12, 2006
2:41:00 PM EDT
Hearing For the Beauty of Winona -- Daniel Lanois
I just paid $3 a gallon filling up my car today, so here's an article I'm naturally interested in: 10 Things Gas Stations Won't Tell You. Among them, that they like high gas prices no more than you do:

Stations earn on average between 10 and 15 cents on a gallon of gas. Ironically, they earn the least when prices are highest. As fuel climbs, gas stations must shrink their profit margin to remain competitive, meaning they earn less per gallon than usual. But another big cost during tough times is something they can't do anything about — credit card fees, which add up to about 2.5% of all purchases. When gas is at, say, $2 a gallon, the station pays credit card companies 5 cents a gallon; when gas hits $3, that fee becomes 7.5 cents — more than half the station's entire average profit.

I pay with credit card nearly every single time I gas up -- I wasn't aware how much the credit charges whack the store owners.

Of course, after I gassed up I went a little nuts in the convenience store (mmmm... jerky), and those items are usually pretty high margin for the gas station. So they did all right with my purchase. Still and all, some useful information here you might not know (and which your gas station owner isn't in a rush to tell you).


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This entry has 3 comments: (Add your own)

• #3 Comment from lsfp1960 
  7/12/06 10:43 PM | Permalink

  I can still get gas for $2.95 a gallon here in my area.  And we just had another 3 cent a gallon increase for a gas tax hike the "powers that be"  claim we voted for.  It's supposed to go up another 3 cents a gallon (same gas tax hike) in September or October.  I wonder if a debit card purchase causes the same penalities for the stations?  Linda in western Washington
  http://journals.aol.com/lsfp1960/LindasWorld/
• #2 Comment from monponsett 
  7/12/06 8:08 PM | Permalink

  I paid $3.75 on Nantucket, for regular.
• #1 Comment from joolsinwa 
  7/12/06 2:45 PM | Permalink

  people need to become credit card free..... it can be done, cash is the only way baby!