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thelastgallonyesterday at 7:56 AM1 replyview on HN

We don't know the business model in Norway.

In US, gas stations barely make any profit on gas, its all from the convenience store, beer, water, lottery tickets, trinkets, souvenirs, etc. Costco, HEB, Walmart, etc also have gas and can run it as a loss leader for customers to compete with Amazon. As the number of gas consumers go down, gas stations everywhere will start shutting down, except the Costco/HEB/Walmart, because gas stations can't compete with those prices.

The U.S. saw over 210,000 stations in the early 1990s, dropping to around 145,000 by 2022, and potentially as low as 115,000 by 2020, according to various data points. Some estimates suggest a potential 50% reduction in traditional stations by 2050 in some regions: https://boosterusa.com/from-the-experts/the-inevitable-death...


Replies

bluGillyesterday at 3:41 PM

Last time I read the financial reports for a gas station it was about 1/3 each, gas, tobacco, and food. Tobacco has gone way down since then, but the other two are still important. Gas is low margin, but high volume and so they make a lot of profit on it.