OK guys, here's a thought.... What do you think? I talked to the owner of a local gas station here in Louisville the other day, and here's what he had to say. They (gas stations) buy their gas from the local distributor for about .85 cents a gallon, and then mark it up to the local retail rate of between $1.35 to $1.80 a gallon. He explained that he sells a little better than 1000 gallons a day, and after paying all his bills, and employees, he manages to eek out a decent middle class living for him and his family. So this got me thinking..... What if a group of,,, let say for example, 100 people got together and decided to open their very own private gas station for their own personal use... Now, let's do a little math... Lets say that the start-up cost of the "station" would be $250,000... That's just a preliminary number right now... so work with me here. Divide that by the 100 "partners" and it's $2500 each. Finance that over 5 years, and you get a "monthly payment" of about $50 per "patner"... So for about $50 a month, you get a 1% partnership/ownership in a business,,, and that in itself may have some tax benefits... but we'll talk more about that later. OK, so... You and your 99 partners now own your very own fuel center where you can buy fuel from your-self at dead cost!!! absolutely no mark-up what so ever! Now, of-course there will be "charges" to keep the station opperating.... Administrative, electricity, book-keeping, etc... So you add up a "worst case scenario" of what those charges will be per year, and divide it up between the 100 members, and every year,,, or quarterly,,, whatever, send everyone out a bill... About $60 a year or so.... Or you could "mark up" the gas 2 or 3 cents a gallon to cover it. I could go on and on, but you get the idea... So what do you think? I'd like to hear a little feed-back before I go out looking for "partners" on this... What do you think? And before you ask, I know what your thinking... Who would be interested in this? Well, anyone who uses 50 gallons a week would just break even for the first 5 years,,, after 5 years.... Gravy baby:TU: I personally use between 50 and 100 gallons per day because I run a fleet of delivery trucks... But think about it. The local pizza delivery place could buy in for all their drivers, fleet companies, large car lots, large families, etc, etc. So, feed-back,,, What do you think?
Gas Station You wouldn't be able to buy any gas for your station. The distributors would not sell you any product. The whole thing is not set up for the small guy. It is set up for the big guys to make money. You would have to sue to get any where and we all know how much that costs. And in the end you would still loose. Sorry to break your bubble. Mike D.
Not to mention the EPA Once one (or more) of the tanks begin to leak, which they ALL do... Gas stations pop up, and go out of buisness overnight.:error:
Taxes.. Forget the questions of access to gas, etc. And the headaches of running a small business with all the risks.. My understanding of gas stations is that the owner only makes pennies of gross profit on each gallon sold..say 10 cents. The rest of the price is driven by wholesale cost of gas and local, state and federal gas taxes. Which you can't avoid if you are a running this as a business. It a good try at 'co-oping'..many rogs do this for food purchases, fuel oil for homes, etc. Pooling of buying power is often done...just won't work for gas! Stanley
Whoa... My first job in the Business was in a gas station. Used to sign for the gas when it was delievered from time to time, when all the attendents were busy, and the owner was out. So I saw the reciepts, and in this part of the world, we were lucky to make .10c a gallon markup.. We made the money in the back, with the repair shop, that kept the place afloat.. selling gas was just a way to get customers in the door.. after all was said and done, he lost money selling gas, or just barely broke even, if we were really busy. The only gas he really made money on was the full serve stuff. Nice idea, but I an tell you as a small business owner, the administrative, legal, and lisc costs would kill you. Sounds like you could possibly buy enough to see a small profit form it maybe, but only high volume users could do that.. the average joe who buys 15 gallons a week would not have any incentive to do this.. JW
