Everyone buy gas at Wal-Mart! (There's a reason for this)

[jmowreader]

The other day I was flipping through the useless local rag when I found a story about The Pantry, Sanford's own convenience store chain. They got to the subject of gasoline...the gasoline analyst said "everyone's selling gas at a loss right now."

Well now! If someone has to sell fuel at a loss, who better than the World's Most Evil Retailer? :evilgrin:

So quick now! Make like a bunny! Run straight to your closest Wal-Mart and buy all the gas you can. Bring all your cars. Bring your neighbor's car. Bring your boat. Your motorcycle. Your rototiller. The empty gas cans chained to the back of the garage. Even bring your snowmobile. (Okay, it's only five million degrees outside right now...but throw some Sta-Bil in the snowcat's gas and it will stay fresh until you can ride...on sold-at-a-loss Wal-Mart gas.) And remember, every gallon you pump costs Wal-Mart ten cents! The more you buy, the worse they do!

Of course, continue to buy your sodas, coffee, snacks and smokes at your friendly local convenience store. Those things are being sold at a profit, and the fact that you're not costing them money by purchasing fuel from them means more money in their pockets!

[salinen]

1. Yeah but

whose more evil, Wal-Mart, or Exxon Mobile?

[barb162]

2. It makes no sense for a gas station to stay open selling at a loss

unless they are making giant money on milk and candy and I tend to doubt that

[AntiCoup2K4]

4. Even in good times most gas stations made a nickel per gallon.

That's why "service stations" no longer exist, and they all turned into convenience stores. The markup on retail products, and cheap fast food are the real profit makers for the franchisee.

[warrens]

5. Actually, they do make enormous amounts on that junk

They factor in the price wars in their pricing. Most times they make money on gas, but in times like this, they have to lose money to keep the volume up and hope the cigs and candy and slurpees will make up for it.

Costco actually had to take a stock hit last month because it refused to abandon its lowest price guarantee on gas. One time, a guy who was in a war with Sam's Club came in one day to find out Sam's was selling gas for 10 cents a gallon...

Remember, for Wal-Mart and people like that, gas is just a convenience item. It draws traffic and add-on sales, but if it doesn't make money, not that big a deal.

[WeRQ4U]

7. DUH. They are not movie theaters.

[jmowreader]

9. Cigarettes and beer are their profit centers

They make good money on milk and candy, but a literal killing on beer and tobacco.

The convenience store down the street (the one that used to have my phone number) sells a carton of Marlboros for $26. All well and good, and if you're in the market for a whole carton of cigarettes that's not a bad price in this area. (The only people who have them cheaper is Food Lion, who uses cartons of cigarettes as their loss leader.) If the convenience store opens the carton and sells you one pack, it's $4.50. And per-pack sales are much higher than carton sales.

Assume the convenience store went to JR Cigars in Selma and paid $17 per carton for them--many convenience stores in Fayetteville do. (JR has, or at least had, a sign up: please give 24 hours notice if you need more than 1000 cartons of one brand and style of cigarettes.) At a 164 percent initial markup on their most popular non-petroleum product, convenience stores can easily sell gas at a loss--especially since there's no real profit in gasoline even on a good day.

[Nikia]

10. Have you priced stuff at convience stores?

Most items are much more expensive than at the grocery store. Most of their fast food sandwiches are more expensive than going through the drive thru at McDonald's. Another thing that is really expensive is OTC medicines.

[barb162]

14. What I notice around here is they sell milk and cigarettes

and soda for the same prices as the groceries. Maybe it's the beer. I don't drink beer so have no idea on the stores and their pricing of it. Never thought of going to a convenience store/gas station for otc meds as the several groceries are open all night and have a huge selection.

[RummyTheDummy]

15. Exactly

These people aren't in the charity business. They're making their money, perhaps not as much as they would like, but they're making it.

[TheDebbieDee]

3. Hi, Jmowreader...I noticed that you are in Fayetteville, NC.

Not to change the subject of your thread, but I wondered if you could give any details regarding the Ft. Bragg soldiers reactions during * speech there a couple of weeks ago.

Were they ordered to remain silent? If so, who oredered them to remain silent?

Or were the soldiers left standing at attention and unable to respond because of that?

[jmowreader]

8. There's mixed reports on this

The Fayettenam Observer reports that the soldiers were "in formation for a brief by their highest officer, hence did not applaud." They were seated, but "formation" means a prescribed arrangement of soldiers, not necessarily soldiers standing in nice neat lines.

I noticed, though, that there were points in the speech where Bush stopped for the tumultuous applause he gets at most of his canned appearances, and no tumultuous applause came. Bush's crew started clapping frantically at one point and the soldiers joined in; when Bush's people stopped, the soldiers stopped.

Forget the speech and look at the video of the soldiers shaking hands with Bush after the speech was over. These people were NOT happy to be in the same state as Bush.

Also remember the comment I posted about the woman soldier who told me, the day after the speech, that she had "something more important to do" than to sit in an auditorium and listen to a speech by Dear Leader: buying a new lipstick.

It's times like these that I think back to a Clinton speech I attended at Fort Drum. It was the dead of winter. Clinton was in the Northeast for some reason and just decided, on the spur of the moment, that he wanted to go over to Fort Drum and thank the troops for their service in Somalia and on Hurricane Andrew relief. (And by "spur of the moment" that's exactly what I mean--Clinton's advance team called the Fort Drum public affairs officer and told him, "the commander-in-chief is going to be on your installation tomorrow morning. He will leave tomorrow afternoon. He will give a speech. Find a gymnasium, cover up the floor and alert the troops.") Wheeler-Sack Army Airfield isn't big enough to land a 747, so the Big Dog came up in a DC-9. The man did two things: spent all morning sitting in a staff sergeant's on-post quarters talking about the stresses of military life with four randomly-selected military families, and spent about an hour and a half talking to as much of the division as they could pack into the biggest gym on post. Lead time on this one was so short, the press contingent included the local television, radio and newspaper. The TV station brought one camera. They didn't even have Syracuse press there, and he couldn't have gotten live national television because the speech started at 3:30pm. Bush wouldn't have given a speech like this. He would have walked to the podium at 8pm and there would have been forty television cameras from every network in the world there to shoot him from every angle imaginable. At Clinton's speech you had applause and even laughter. (He made a comment about the fifty feet of snow on the ground and all of the soldiers from the South. "I don't know how they got y'all to come back here!" Now...in Bush's case...I sell lumber that isn't as wooden as Bush is.)

[TheDebbieDee]

13. Chimpy, the photo-op pResident!

Good story about Clinton, though. The man is the ultimate extrovert!

I remember one story about Clinton (I don't know if it's true or not, but it sounds right.), while he was running for re-election against Dole-Kemp, was scheduled to give a speech somewhere.

Or course, Clinton protestors showed up, too. Anyway, the story goes that the Big Dog noticed one particular protestor (I think she was an anti-abortion protestor) who was extremely upset, so he walked over to her, with his Secret Service detail in tow, and talked WITH her for a few minutes.

By the time Clinton moved on with his detail, the woman was still an anti-abortionist, but he was able to re-direct and re-focus her anger.

The more I hear * talk, the more pissed I get.

[Deja Q]

6. At a LOSS right now? Wow, gas stores are compassionate.

[prole_for_peace]

11. i knew they did that but i was so set in my "boycott" mode i didn't

think to use this against them. they sell it so low because they figure the people who come to buy the cheap gas will come on in the store and spend money. also, the walmart here (i don't know about elsewhere) "gives" a discount of 3 cents per gallon when you buy it with a prepaid walmart gift card. another way to get people in the store.

[Orsino]

12. Nope. Not going to happen.

I won't go to Wal-Mart, as long as I can afford to go elsewhere.

[Kathleen04]

16. Walmart sells gasoline??

Oy.

[Wapsie B]

18. Yes they do.

I know around this region they have a Murphy's USA selling gas on the Walmart property. I'm sure this co. is just a subsidiary of Wally World.

[KaliTracy]

17. I got a free candy bar today for buying $20 of gas at BP. I'm not using

my gas cards anymore (or as rarely as possible, even though I pay them off every month).

When one city I work in is at $2.33 and a few miles closer to my home it's $2.18 seems like they are ALL making money. And I wouldn't give Walmart even an extra $1.00 if I can help it....