Quote:
Originally Posted by turbo6bar
The real money at gas stations is in items inside the store. The margin on junk food is incredible.
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That is normally the case but right now, this month, it isn't true.
Lets look at some real data, shall we?
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pri_allmg_d_SCA_PTA_cpgal_m.htm
in California for example, the average cost for conventional regular gasoline in the month of February was $2.57.
There's about 36 cents on top of that for federal and state excise taxes, and an additional 8% sales tax on the price of the gas and also on the excise taxes, for a sub-total of $3.16 a gallon. There's a little bit of cost for transporting the gas to the station but it's not that much, lets say 3 cents a gallon just for fun. Now we're up to $3.19. We were paying around $3.70 a gallon retail on average at that time. That's a mark-up of around 51 cents a gallon.
Using today's spot prices and retail prices will yield the same results within a few cents.
I didn't pick the highest region , I didn't pick the lowest region, I just grabbed an example where I live. In this place, So Cal, there are lots of stations that charge much higher than average. A shell or mobil station might sell gas for 20 cents more than an ARCO.
So you go to the mobil station and pay and additional 15 or 20 cents more than at the arco, and you are well over 60 cents per gallon mark-up.
Even when the markup on gas drops back down to a more typical 12%, they'll still be making 45 cents per gallon profit at $3.75 per gallon.