BALTIMORE -- Skyline Products has installed its PriceAdvantage Central Control Fuel Pricing Software at pilot convenience store sites of Royal Farms Inc.
The software allows petroleum marketers at corporate headquarters to remotely update fuel pricing in the field at the point-of-sale (POS) system, the pump and the Skyline Electronic Price Display from their computer, laptop and PDA.
Using PriceAdvantage, our customers can remotely execute their individual fuel pricing strategy per store, per grade in real-time, said Greg Stadjuhar, [image-nocss] vice president of sales and marketing for Colorado Springs, Colo.-based Skyline Products. With today's market volatility, companies can no longer solely rely on the store manager to change the price, collect the competitive data and confirm the changes were made.
He added, citing OPIS data, that the average retailer changes fuel prices five or more times per week. PriceAdvantage [gives] petroleum marketers like Royal Farms the ability to instantly react to competitive market changes from anywhere and confirmwith absolute certaintythat the changes occurred. The ROI is very compelling when new price generation and implementation can be reduced to minutes, which for most operators would formerly take hours.
PriceAdvantage automates the three major components of a typical fuel-pricing process: competitive data collection, analysis and price implementation at the store. Recent competitive price changes are available real-time via electronic updates from either an in-store touchscreen input device by store personnel; web applications providing third-party data sources, like OPIS and GasBuddy; or backoffice imports. Fuel managers can set up customizable pricing rules against which new competitive data is evaluated (such as maintain Store A's unleaded, mid, premium fuels at one cent below primary competitor).
Updates to fuel pricing can then be sent instantly to the site's POS system, the dispenser, and the Skyline Electronic Price Displayfreeing store managers to focus on customer service. By integrating with backoffice accounting systems, like PDI, PriceAdvantage also includes pricing analysis tools to enable the pricing managers to determine price points at which store profitability is maximized, the company said.
Skyline Products develops, manufactures and provides electronic sign technology and central-controlled gasoline price software solutions designed to meet the price display needs of organizations in the convenience store, truckstop and petroleum marketing industries. Clients have included Conoco, Kroger, Murphy Oil, QuikTrip, Sheetz and Texaco.
Baltimore-based Royal Farms owns and operates more than 120 convenience food stores in Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.
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.