I have never, ever understood this. Gas is for the most part is a simple commodity. Sure, some prefer a premium brand (like Shell) to a cheaper one (like ARCO), but I can’t for the life of me figure out why there is such a wide variance even within a single mile or two of a city (and amongst the same brand!) I would think that supply and demand would reign supreme here. It’s the same stuff.
You get that one gas station that charges $0.10 less than all the others in the area and the lines are out to the street.
So where are supply and demand?
In: 38
A lot of what’s said in this thread is true or close to it, but one thing to note that is also important: time of day.
With the advent of the motorized pricing sign (it’s not just gas stations with digital signs; there are ways to manipulate the analog ones from the control center, too) companies can update their prices in real time both at the pump and in the billboard. This means that between 8-10 am when nobody’s out and about gas might be cheaper to entice the frugal people to shop. When the motors start running from 11-3 or 11-6 or whenever a place sees its most traffic you can be that little poster outside is going to be spinning upward.
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