As Americans try hard to cut down on the number of miles they log and more and more families are leaving their SUVs at home, gas station owners are forced to compete for every gallon they sell.Some have tied to capitalize on the old-fashioned advantage of having the best service in town. Route 102 Gas in Londonderry, NH, an independent gas station, washes windows and checks the oil of their customers, all without charge.
Owners can decide what level of service they provide to the customers, but they often have little control of the price of their gas.
"Customers can complain all they want, but there's not much they can do," says Ralph Stowell, owner of a LukOil station, to the Eagle Tribune.
Just a few cents can be the deciding factor, the Eagle Tribune discovered after conducting an informal survey last week. In North Andover, Mass, the Gulf and Mobil stations posted prices four cents apart.
After nearly an hour, not a single car had stopped at Gulf, the station with the more expensive gas. "It's not like years ago," said William Burke to the Eagle Tribune. He has owned the Mobil station for more than thirty years. "It's a price-driven market."
Occasionally, though, customers are willing to pay the extra few cents to continue buying from their favorite stations.
Jay Pelletier of Chester, NH, arrived to fill up his motorcycle. He told the Eagle Tribune he has a "loyalty to Shell and its convenience to the highway."
That loyalty is a value that gas station owners are hoping to capitalize on. They can’t always lower prices so they have to find other ways to keep drivers coming back.
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--Bridget O'Sullivan
