Does Brand Matter Anymore? Two decades ago, most U.S. gasoline stations were branded to a major flag – like Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, Shell or Texaco. Chances are, you probably even had a brand-specific gas card. But, in just the past 15 years, the retail marketplace transformed. That gas card is probably long gone from your wallet, replaced by Visa, AMEX and debit cards. And that’s just one of many changes… The majors consolidated among each other to create larger conglomerates, a.k.a. “Super Oil Companies.” A huge portion of the gasoline stations that used to be owned by popular fuel brands got sold off. The playing field got a lot smaller – and much more competitive. Adding to the competitive landscape are those hypermarketers we just talked about. Wawa, Costco, WalMart, Sam’s Club, Safeway and BJ’s Wholesale started selling fuel. Also, we can’t forget that the majors have decided that they don’t love owning the “real estate.” They don’t want the headache of operating service stations – staffing and maintaining them. They’d rather focus on supplying fuel through their branded distributors or focusing more time on oil exploration. As a result, huge chunks of the 140,000+ stations in the U.S. have been sold off in the last several years. Fuel Buying 101, Part 3: Retail Markets | Oil Price Information Service (OPIS) © 2020, all rights reserved 20