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mudguard

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#2075311 18-Aug-2018 14:55

Buster:

There must be plenty out there that would achieve those savings every month so $1400 per annum.

Is that an apples with apples comparison? I guess what I want to know is what is spent per litre over say a year. I guess you've saved $1400 over the advertised price. But I'm trying to work out whether it's worth me trying something other than just going to the lowest priced stations. Admittedly I'm not a typical user at 6500L per annum.

UHD

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#2075600 19-Aug-2018 08:30

I considered the Farmsource card too. It is pretty close to competitive as for $2,080/year you can pump 1,067L of petrol but Smartfuel just slightly edges it out.

If I had a lot of other people driving my car I might consider it for simplicity as you can just say use the card, fill up at Mobil and not have to worry about special days or anything.

nickb800

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#2075603 19-Aug-2018 08:52

sbiddle:

nickb800:

The fuel retailers sell an identical product with limited ability to differentiate - so if they ended up in a price war, it would be difficult to end. That's why you won't see non-discount retailers closing the pricing gap - a little bit of a price difference is fine, as long as everyone gets a reasonable volume through

They don't sell the same product though - Gull sell ethanol blended biofuel which depending on your view is ether good or bad. Blending ethanol also allows them to avoid paying the same excise tax on their fuel which is one of the reasons why their product is cheaper.

As a result of one player selling a cheaper product we have a price war, which has resulted in customers in areas where Gull isn't effectively subsidising fuel costs for the big four so they can discount.

Going back 4-5 years ago retailer margins were in the vicinity of 16-20 cpl. The widespread introduction of loyalty schemes has seen that double and often sit around the mid 30 cpl. That factors in instant discounts (which are only used by around 60% of customers based on the last data I saw) so with 40% of customers paying retail that offers good margin to allow for discounting.

Where petrol is still selling for over 25cpl less in some parts of the country and retail discounts are applied on top it's being sold effectively below cost, so people like us in Wellington are subsidising that.

Yeah gull's product isn't quite the same, but other discounters e.g. Allied, GAS (depends on location) seem to use the usual stuff.

Gull tries to portray themselves as being cheap but they may well make more margin at a lower price due to the cheaper product as they say

mudguard

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#2075611 19-Aug-2018 10:14

Is the Farmsource card available to everyone? I had a look at it just said Fonterra customers?

I don't think Gull's 91 is any different to the others in terms quality?

Buster

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#2075624 19-Aug-2018 10:56

mudguard:

Is that an apples with apples comparison? I guess what I want to know is what is spent per litre over say a year. I guess you've saved $1400 over the advertised price. But I'm trying to work out whether it's worth me trying something other than just going to the lowest priced stations. Admittedly I'm not a typical user at 6500L per annum.

I don't really compare to anything else. I'm buying a modest amount of BP 98 per month the cheapest way I know how.

All I really know is that if anyone buys BP and takes the 6 cpl savings up front then their saving will be 6 cpl.

So you can compare that price easily to whatever the competition are selling theirs for and quite probably you will be better just buying as much as you like of whatever you like from whoever is cheapest in the area at that time.

The only point of difference you need to consider if buying BP is whether to 'use' or 'save'.

The numbers say (worst case scenario of 6 cpl on everything) that by buying in $40 lots at 6 cpl and then when all the totalled up 6 cpl saving are the same as the current price and redeeming with one 50 litre purchase, the effective savings per litre will be more like 13 cpl.

So short story is the competition really need to be about 13 cpl cheaper to actually be cheaper. If there are some 10 cpl purchases included then the savings are even larger.

The other thing is that the volume of fuel you are buying per month in $40 amounts is lots.

The only sane way to do this is using the BP App and putting two or three $40 lots in one after the other. I don't have to walk in and que anymore and it almost feels like I'm saving time.

tukapa1

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#2075626 19-Aug-2018 10:59

UHD:

I considered the Farmsource card too. It is pretty close to competitive as for $2,080/year you can pump 1,067L of petrol but Smartfuel just slightly edges it out.

If I had a lot of other people driving my car I might consider it for simplicity as you can just say use the card, fill up at Mobil and not have to worry about special days or anything.

We only have a Z in the town we live at, and while we're only 15 minutes from a bigger town that we both go into for work my Mrs couldn't plan in advance to use Smartfuel and always ended up filling up at the Z when her light was on. With the farmsource card we also get 11c at Z (from memory) so for us it's going to work out better than Smartfuel, without having to worry about the accumulating/$40 spend thing.

mudguard:

Is the Farmsource card available to everyone? I had a look at it just said Fonterra customers?

I don't think Gull's 91 is any different to the others in terms quality?

Yep - available to everyone - I'm not a Fonterra customer.

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Delphinus

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#2075686 19-Aug-2018 11:44

That farmsource card looks like a good deal. 20c discount at Mobil!

sbiddle

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#2075688 19-Aug-2018 11:44

mudguard:

I don't think Gull's 91 is any different to the others in terms quality?

Gull's regular 91 is similar, but all their other petrol is all very different as it's a biofuel blend. I'm not sure if they still have their Biofuel 91 in the market, their website doesn't mention it.

The biofuel blend is a) cheaper to make since it's blended with ethanol and b) the excise tax is cheaper.

Biofuel isn't necessarily bad - but there are both pros and cons to it. What it does offer through is a price advantage to Gull in the market, and it also allows them to have margin that they can use to further lower the price of their 91 which puts downward pricing pressure on the other retailers.

rugrat

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#2075727 19-Aug-2018 13:11

NPD in Christchurch gives 12 cents off a litre for any Supermarket docket.

They give gold card holders 15 cents off a litre.

I don’t seem to shop where I get extra fuel discounts on AA card, so the new player here is working out better for me.

I’ve never seen a petrol company have a lower price then another in Christchurch without discount, so can only get cheaper petrol by going where get biggest discount.

tukapa1

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#2075732 19-Aug-2018 13:47

Just to avoid any confusion I have the Farm Source Supercard - I think they have a couple of cards available.

16c off at Mobil, 11c at Z.

browned

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#2078292 24-Aug-2018 09:28

Wife and I have linked smartfuel/aa cards together, she drives more than me and gets 91 from BP or Caltex depending on price, there is competition in the rural town she drives through so prices vary. Wife can get 2 x $40 with current price but normally only gets 1.

I drive less and get 98, once a week I can get 3 x $40 on 10c discount day. We shop at Countdown to get 6 cents or more per week.

Once every 1.5 to 2 months I get 50l on for free. Total savings so far are $3150

2015 $515

2016 $706

2017 $857

2018 $1072 so far.

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Oblivian

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#2084202 5-Sep-2018 10:11

I couldn't find our original 'discounts are a scam' type thread, so as good as any to bring up the latest revelation around this one.

Notice foodstuffs has changed supplier at the same time as new world card anniversary.

Can only guess it's a 5-10yr review or shorter.

But now, all your Pak n save stations mentioned here (serviced by Mobil wholesale) will now be Z backed.

Along with the vouchers they and new world spit out.

So that's NW/PnS with stronghold on Z and presumably caltex?. BP and countdown in bed.

And Mobil running their own cards.

Or is chevron NZ allowed to chose based on who else is in town.

sbiddle

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#2084218 5-Sep-2018 10:31

Chevron was purchased by Z and Caltex is part of Smartfuel

The NW deal is interesting in the fact it's not delivering anything at for customers. A 6cpl discount off petrol is the norm now at Z/Caltex/Mobil/BP. Why would anybody go to NW to get a 6cpl off discount voucher which is then of no real value?

Countdown stack their discounts on top of the Z/Caltex funded 6cpl discount, so you get 12cpl off by shopping at Countdown and buying fuel at Z/Caltex.

The NZ deal also becomes rather pointless when at least once a week now there is always a 10cpl off discount day by Z/Mobil/Caltex/BP so the NW voucher offering 6cpl is pointless when you can get 10cpl off anyway.

Z won the supply contract for all the Foodstuffs fuel sites which is a big deal for them. It would seem however that the end customer at a Foodstuffs store gets nothing at all from this deal.

The only thing more useless in the marketplace is Z offering Airpoints - since they don't offer fuel discounts for Airpoints customers you'd have to be an idiot to stop there just for Airpoints because the value of the Airpoints reward equates to about 1/3 of what you get saving 6cpl.

Oblivian

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#2084229 5-Sep-2018 10:42

sbiddle:

Chevron was purchased by Z and Caltex is part of Smartfuel

The NW deal is interesting in the fact it's not delivering anything at for customers. A 6cpl discount off petrol is the norm now at Z/Caltex/Mobil/BP. Why would anybody go to NW to get a 6cpl off discount voucher which is then of no real value?

Countdown stack their discounts on top of the Z/Caltex funded 6cpl discount, so you get 12cpl off by shopping at Countdown and buying fuel at Z/Caltex.

What made me put the ?, was we were one of the commerce comission heavy handed sites. A Z and Caltex anti-competition zone only. Z closed up shop and did the usual sell/switch to Mobil. But while closed for reno/fitout The NW vouchers switched to being able to be used at Caletx local, or nearest mobil (further away) still. Which seemed to contradict the allowance put in place

sbiddle

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#2084264 5-Sep-2018 11:56

There are lots of dodgy aspects to the ComCom deal - it should have never been approved. Without repeating a discussion I was certainly not supposed to be privy to (guy next to me in Koru who was being very loud on his phone) it was safe to say Z had no issues with the ComCom restrictions and were pretty much laughing at them.

For Z it was a brilliant move and allowed them to split their market and compete on two fronts - Z at the high end of the market and Z as a discount brand. Margins from both averaged out give them a significant advantage over Mobil or BP.

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