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Horseshoe theory posted:It's a natural part of the death spiral of a company (it happened at Circuit City, Borders, etc. in recent years). Those were 7 and 9 years ago now. Just saying.
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Feb 14, 2018 01:53
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fishmech posted:Those were 7 and 9 years ago now. Just saying. What can I say, I'm a lich. 
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Feb 14, 2018 02:12
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DrNutt posted:I can't even remember the last time I got Costco gas. The lines and associated traffic assholery are just too much for me to want to deal with. I have a Costco right next to my work and the Costco gas pumps are rarely crowded. I get the slightly lower Costco price, collect 4% cash back for gas on my Costco credit card, and it is pretty convenient. I can stop by Costco multiple times a week and pick up the odd item, too. I’m pretty blessed. Not raising a family I wouldn’t otherwise have a Costco membership but since there is one right by my work, the membership has been a great boon to me.
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Feb 14, 2018 14:01
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Costco is the best part of American capitalism.
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Feb 14, 2018 16:07
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:if people stopped shopping around so much every gas station would definitely run wildly divergent price scams lol no
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Feb 14, 2018 16:16
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self unaware posted:lol no They already do. Gas will be like 5 cents higher one street over because they already know you aren't going to check both. If people checked even less they could be 25 cents apart or 80 cents or whatever. Nothing but gas (that people commonly directly buy) has prices that swing so wildly so fast so people have a greater concern on getting the "right" price.
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Feb 14, 2018 16:54
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:They already do. Gas will be like 5 cents higher one street over because they already know you aren't going to check both. Gas isn't five cents higher one street over because "they already know you aren't going to check both" I don't know why you think this, do you have some source other than your own "common sense"?
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Feb 14, 2018 16:58
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:They already do. Gas will be like 5 cents higher one street over because they already know you aren't going to check both. If people checked even less they could be 25 cents apart or 80 cents or whatever. Nothing but gas (that people commonly directly buy) has prices that swing so wildly so fast so people have a greater concern on getting the "right" price. The boss at the gas station I worked at was partially controlled by corporate as to her rates based on the local market. If anything, she would attempt to be a cent or two cheaper than the closest station regardless of visibility, but sometimes she would get overruled and be forced to set her prices slightly higher. You are, as usual, pulling bullshit out of your rear end.
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Feb 14, 2018 17:08
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ryonguy posted:The boss at the gas station I worked at was partially controlled by corporate as to her rates based on the local market. If anything, she would attempt to be a cent or two cheaper than the closest station regardless of visibility, but sometimes she would get overruled and be forced to set her prices slightly higher. You are, as usual, pulling bullshit out of your rear end. Why would she want the prices to be cheaper? To be intentionally lose money? Or because she felt people would know the price of the other place and she needed to undercut to make sales? If she did not fear people knowing both prices was she just losing money for fun?
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Feb 14, 2018 17:19
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before this conversation goes any further i request everyone post how many hours they've played in lemonade stand thanks
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Feb 14, 2018 17:20
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Gas is generally priced with as little margin as possible to act as a loss leader. Stations make their money selling you drinks and snacks, not fuel. That’s why stations with no food for sale will typically have higher priced gas. Price fluctuations between stations are based on proximity to high traffic areas and anticipated food sales more than anything else. Costco sells gas for drat near cost, because it’s more of a membership benefit than anything else.
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Feb 14, 2018 17:20
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Isn’t it basic economics to price things slightly higher than you need to for a bit and then suddenly slash them to the normal price so you can call it a sale?
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Feb 14, 2018 17:23
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learnincurve posted:Isn’t it basic economics to price things slightly higher than you need to for a bit and then suddenly slash them to the normal price so you can call it a sale? Sometimes. It's basically JC Penney's business model, and when they tried to instead do "$40 all the time instead of a bimodal $70 regular price, on sale for $25" and lost a ton of money because people got used to only buying things on sale From the wiki: quote:During a November 2013 conference call to Wall Street analysts, Ullman announced that JCP is "restoring initial markups necessary to support the return [to a] promotional department store strategy"
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Feb 14, 2018 17:29
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Why would she want the prices to be cheaper? To be intentionally lose money? Or because she felt people would know the price of the other place and she needed to undercut to make sales? If she did not fear people knowing both prices was she just losing money for fun?
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Feb 14, 2018 17:39
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Devor posted:Sometimes. It's basically JC Penney's business model, and when they tried to instead do "$40 all the time instead of a bimodal $70 regular price, on sale for $25" and lost a ton of money because people got used to only buying things on sale In other news, I tried to see how Pharmacies are doing the retailpocolypse and didn't really see anything. Did see this article about pharma companies being lovely though. Anyone know more about retail pharmacy, is it likely to get hurt, or not due to not really being able to shop around easy?
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Feb 14, 2018 17:43
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twodot posted:Ok, you've thoroughly missed the point here. The point wasn't that that specific gas station manager was some ur-manager that represents literally all of the American gas station industry, but rather that there are a large number of gas station gas price setters, and that they have different motivations. The very fact that it is even possible to undercut local gas stations without getting immediately re-undercut shows that not all gas station gas price setters are deeply concerned about customers having perfect knowledge of the local gas station gas prices. And if everyone only ever got gas at the first place they saw and never compared prices everyone would be able to charge high prices because the price is so mysterious and unstable day to day. If everyone checked every gas station and had infinite patience for driving to them every gas station would have the same price, in our world neither extreme is the case and people feel a little nervous and paranoid and are willing to drive farther than is reasonable but not THAT far and stores need to keep in lockstep but not like perfect lockstep so much there is no variation. That is true for every product that exists, but for gas the wild price swings month to month make it more to the forefront
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Feb 14, 2018 17:44
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:And if everyone only ever got gas at the first place they saw and never compared prices everyone would be able to charge high prices because the price is so mysterious and unstable day to day. quote:If everyone checked every gas station and had infinite patience for driving to them every gas station would have the same price edit: Even more trivially, stupid or malicious or lazy employees exist that would ignore owners' desire to offer The One True Gas Price. twodot fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Feb 14, 2018 |
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Feb 14, 2018 17:51
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Why would she want the prices to be cheaper? To be intentionally lose money? Or because she felt people would know the price of the other place and she needed to undercut to make sales? If she did not fear people knowing both prices was she just losing money for fun? Hey dumb rear end, what part of a gas station is the part that makes money?
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Feb 14, 2018 18:44
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Sure is weird to argue that its very difficult to know what gas prices look like a little bit over when the built-in maps on your phone will list it: Don't even need to use the many other apps just for looking at gas prices, it's right in Google Maps.
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Feb 14, 2018 18:44
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Do gas prices generally vary that much station to station within a city in the US? Where I live it's entirely regional but within each general region every station will be more or less in lockstep with "competitors" changing the price within seconds of each other.
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Feb 14, 2018 18:49
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Baronjutter posted:Do gas prices generally vary that much station to station within a city in the US? Where I live it's entirely regional but within each general region every station will be more or less in lockstep with "competitors" changing the price within seconds of each other. They do vary and because it's America people will drive out of their way, using more gas, to save like 40 cents on gas.
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Feb 14, 2018 18:51
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Baronjutter posted:Do gas prices generally vary that much station to station within a city in the US? Where I live it's entirely regional but within each general region every station will be more or less in lockstep with "competitors" changing the price within seconds of each other. depends on how many other gas stations are nearby and how much traffic the local road gets generally you dont even need a map to find the cheapest prices, just go to a highway exit where there's two gas stations adjacent to each other. most of the time that's where the cheapest gas is. maps are just for the extreme penny saver crowd who value their time so little as to drive out of their way to save thirty cents on gas
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Feb 14, 2018 18:53
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Baronjutter posted:Do gas prices generally vary that much station to station within a city in the US? Where I live it's entirely regional but within each general region every station will be more or less in lockstep with "competitors" changing the price within seconds of each other. You're seeing prices across two separate states there. That said some of the largest cities do that, e.g. if you insist on buying gas in Manhattan it's currently as much as $3.75 a gallon for regular gas, while if you're over in the middle of Queens it'll be like $2.75. There's also a whole ongoing thing across the US where there's a lot fewer gas stations open than there used to be, a low-key retail sector collapse. Particularly in high real estate value city areas for obvious reasons, but also out in rural and suburban areas.
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Feb 14, 2018 18:53
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Neo Rasa posted:They do vary and because it's America people will drive out of their way, using more gas, to save like 40 cents on gas. With the amount of difference between prices on that map I can kinda understand people going a bit out of their way, but I know people here in Canada that do the same thing but within a city/region gas prices will never vary more than a cent or two. Like every place will be 124 but oh my god this one weird old station is still at 123 everyone swarm it!! fishmech posted:There's also a whole ongoing thing across the US where there's a lot fewer gas stations open than there used to be, a low-key retail sector collapse. Particularly in high real estate value city areas for obvious reasons, but also out in rural and suburban areas. This is very true too, I hear lots of people talking about the "war on cars" by the city "killing all the gas stations". There are way fewer gas stations around compared to when I was a kid. In fact there's a whole town to the west that used to have 4 gas stations that now have none, they don't have a single station within their limits (the city actually passed a zoning bylaw banning any new ones because gas stations are dirty working class things). All the smaller 2 pump stations are gone and the ones that remain have expanded to fit more pumps and a larger convenience store plus over-priced services like touchless car washes. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Feb 14, 2018 |
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Feb 14, 2018 18:54
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There's generally a $0.01 - $0.04 range near me in Austin. A new Circle K store opened up nearby last year, and their grand opening they advertised $0.20 per gallon cheaper gas for the first 24 hours. The line stretched as far as I could see straight back through my neighborhood, at least 6 blocks. They had cops directing traffic. It was the middle of summer though, so people kept their cars running for the A/C. How much gas do you think people used on multiple hours of waiting in line? Doesn't matter! They saved $1.95 on their tank when they got there!
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Feb 14, 2018 18:55
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 Now, there is a bit of a confounding factor here in that bay area residents are notorious for having no real price sensitivity for anything but housing costs, but yeah you can have up to $1.00 per gallon variance here for stations within 2-3 miles of each other. There's an intersection in my town where there is a $0.80 difference between two stations across the street for each other. Guess which one has the stupidly long line? Answer: Both of them. 
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Feb 14, 2018 19:06
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I mean for the map I posted, if you're crossing the river to save 30 cents a gallon on gas, you're going to need to pay $3 or $5 in tolls to get back across the river depending on which of the nearby bridges you use.
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Feb 14, 2018 19:12
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fishmech posted:I mean for the map I posted, if you're crossing the river to save 30 cents a gallon on gas, you're going to need to pay $3 or $5 in tolls to get back across the river depending on which of the nearby bridges you use. One weird trick to save money on gas: use company vehicle to arrive at gas station, fill many, many, unapproved containers with gas. You might only save $0.10 a gallon on gas, but if you get 200 gallons, that's like $20!
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Feb 14, 2018 19:43
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People in the UK will also drive past three petrol stations to save a few pence per litre and have it costing them more because of the extra milage, and our prices vary wildly as well, so it’s not just a US thing.
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Feb 14, 2018 19:44
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Feb 14, 2018 21:06
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Tnega posted:One weird trick to save money on gas: use company vehicle to arrive at gas station, fill many, many, unapproved containers with gas. You might only save $0.10 a gallon on gas, but if you get 200 gallons, that's like $20! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjwU8AzFgms
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Feb 14, 2018 21:20
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People also have wild ideas about the quality of gasoline at certain chains and use that as a justification for paying a higher price. And then you have people like my mother who refuses to fill up at a Citgo because it props up the government in Venezuela. She used to cite Hugo Chavez but I think now it’s just “the government”.
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Feb 14, 2018 21:23
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i only support those good guys at chevron when i fill up
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Feb 14, 2018 21:30
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:And if everyone only ever got gas at the first place they saw and never compared prices everyone would be able to charge high prices because the price is so mysterious and unstable day to day. If everyone checked every gas station and had infinite patience for driving to them every gas station would have the same price, in our world neither extreme is the case and people feel a little nervous and paranoid and are willing to drive farther than is reasonable but not THAT far and stores need to keep in lockstep but not like perfect lockstep so much there is no variation. Reasonable paranoia is checking prices in the area. Unreasonable paranoia is driving so far to save pennies that you actually lose money. It's not a paradox with "no way to win". People are specifically calling the second behavior stupid, not the first one. You're arguing as if the two are tied together, but they're not.
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Feb 14, 2018 21:35
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I’ve seen more than $1/gallon difference in the Bay Area.
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Feb 14, 2018 22:29
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Noctone posted:I’ve seen more than $1/gallon difference in the Bay Area. Yeah, but I think that's just this area being insane. My hunch is that it's from the prevalent mindset of "Well, I make $200K a year but will never own a house as long as I live here, so I might as well spend it on whatever the gently caress else I want instead." This area isn't normal, so I tend to discount other economic oddities I see.
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Feb 14, 2018 23:39
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I dunno I drive a volt now and my commute is fully within the electric range. Saves me about $80 a month in gas.
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Feb 15, 2018 00:34
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I was up for a really interesting job in San Matteo a few months ago, and at first glance it seemed like it paid a ton and I was really chuffed about it. Then, I did some research and realised that the cost of living out there was so high that it was basically a subsistence salary, and I gave up on the interview process. In other words, rich people ruin life for everyone and they should all die.
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Feb 15, 2018 00:40
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Tnega posted:An old Extra Credits (The JC Penny one) that kinda talks about how Humans are just badly programmed robutts.
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Feb 15, 2018 06:59
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The JCPenney thing was depressing to me because it showed me how stupid people are. Not that I didn't already know that, but it will saddens me to have it shown so clearly. Basically being tacitly told that people are thundering dumbfucks who like to be emotionally manipulated is a bitter pill to swallow.
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Feb 16, 2018 01:36
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