The American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) announced the release of the fourth video in its series of fuel marketer-focused videos on the flexfuelforward.com website today. The series addresses common marketer questions about E15 and flex fuels with straightforward answers from retailers who have implemented the fuels successfully. Retailers answer why they chose to add E15 and flex fuels in this episode.
“The decision to add a new product or buy new equipment is rarely easy, but it can be easier if someone like you has already made a similar decision,” said Ron Lamberty, ACE Senior Vice President and host of each episode. “Much of the news about new E15 and flex fuel locations focuses on big chains, yet just as many new E15 and flex fuel retailers are single store or small chain owners. Retailers like them, trying to decide whether to offer new fuels, can learn from the experiences of those retailers.”
Take Charlie Good’s Good & Quick Companies’ station for example. “I made this decision to add E15 and flex fuels as my way to survive, because there are going to be more cars that use this, more people who are going to want this, and I’m going to be the leader, not the follower,” Good said. “But the main thing is when more people come through my door to buy flex fuels, they come through my door to buy all of my other stuff in my store too.”
Or, consider Kent Satrang’s success at Petro Serve USA. “I’ve been working with ethanol for 30 years, so I’m not afraid — I know it’s a great quality product and I know it helps lessen our dependence on foreign oil,” Satrang said. “That’s a good enough reason to do it, but there are lots of other reasons too, like our own economics and the profits of this company and the growth — our gallons are up a million gallons…and a lot of that is ethanol.”
Bosselman Enterprises and Jetz are two more small chain stores that can tell you why they made the switch in the latest episode. Randy Gard of Bosselman’s Pump & Pantry said they started offering E15 (Clean88) because it’s a higher octane, lower cost option for their customers. “It gets to be a pretty compelling argument,” Gard said.
The video series and flexfuelforward.com are being promoted through paid advertising in print and online convenience store industry publications and websites.
