CADYVILLE, N.Y.--Sue Lintner, owner of Cadyville Gulf, a gas station/convenience store, has decided to treat her gasoline pricing as a loss-leader.
The location has been through multiple owners since the late 1990s and has had trouble competing with the town's other stores and gas stations. Lintner, according to The Press-Republican, was getting by with her site pumping about 1,500 gallons of gasoline a day until she changed strategy in February.
She decided to drive foot traffic into her store by offering the lowest gasoline [image-nocss] prices in the area. Lintner was charging $2.85 per gallon for gasoline at the beginning of last week.
Lintner told the paper that most days she makes around a penny-per-gallon profit. Sometimes, it's 2 cents, sometimes it's zero, depending on wholesale prices. If it weren't for the products she sells in the store, though, selling gasoline at barely more than breakeven numbers wouldn't make sense, and wouldn't make much profit, even with the increased volume.
People come from all over to buy gas, she said. Then they smell the food and the coffee and see the other things we have, and they come back.
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.