It turns out that gas stations don’t make much money from selling you gasoline.
They make only pennies per gallon sold. Most of the profit, about 75%, comes from the markups on convenience store items such as sunglasses, hot food or medicine, according to the Associated Food and Petroleum Dealers, or AFPD, a trade association of independent operators.
Seems like they’re doing it all wrong. If gasoline is the loss leader to get people to stop in a buy some sunglasses, perhaps they should differentiate themselves by providing different profitless products and services.
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