Quote:
Originally Posted by Dion
Costco sells at a lower price and they never seem to run out.
To counter your last point, stations profits go up when oil prices are rising rapidly like they are now. Sell at a higher price even though the shipment you paid for earlier was at a much cheaper price. Yet when the price of oil drops it's different situation where they would rather hold onto the extra profits and in the end slow to drop prices. Prices go up quickly and slow to drop.
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Costco is not really like normal stations though. I suspect they have much larger tanks, and they make money in other ways. Using them as a basis to compare isn't really useful.
Yes, prices rise rapidly and I just explained why. You can read it again if you would like. They descend slower because no one wants to take a bath no that last purchase, so the station buying last in a dropping price environment ends up setting the price to not lose a ton of money. Other stations follow, because they don't want a run on their station. As those days roll forward and the highest price paid begins to drop, the prices drop.
So ya, customers pay the highest prices as they rise, and the highest as they drop(relative to bulk price) because of how markets, storage and purchase psychology works, not because of malicious gouging.