Americans fuel up their cars about four to five times every month at the estimated 150,000 fueling stations across the United States, but who owns these fueling locations? It’s highly unlikely that it’s an oil company and very likely it’s a one-store local business.
NACS has developed a backgrounder, “Who Sells America’s Fuel?” that provides an overview of the various types of retail formats that sell fuel. The backgrounder was developed to help retailers explain market conditions to customers, legislators and the media. The National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) has shared the backgrounders with hundreds of national reporters.
There are 123,807 convenience stores selling fuel in the United States, and these retailers sell an estimated 80% of all the fuel purchased in the country. Overall, 59% of the convenience stores selling fuel are single-store operators—more than 70,000 stores. Many of these small businesses may not have the resources to brand their stores separately from the fuel they sell and promote on their canopies, often leading to consumer misperceptions that they are businesses owned and operated by a major oil company.
“Convenience stores sell 80% of the gasoline in the United States, and most are one-store businesses, and less than 1% are owned by the major oil companies. We have a great story to share,” said NACS Vice President of Strategic Industry Initiatives Jeff Lenard.
The backgrounder is part of the NACS Fuels Resource Center, an online resource that examines conditions and trends that could impact gasoline prices. The online resource is annually published to help demystify the retail fueling industry by exploring, among other topics, how fuel is sold, how prices affect consumer sentiment, why prices historically increase in the spring and which new fuels are likely to gain traction in the marketplace.
Click here to view the backgrounder.
