Amaroo finally getting its servo

The Amaroo Servo is now open for business. Hours are from 6am to 10pm – good stuff. And they seem to be cheaper than Ginn St too.

Whoops – meant to quote one of the comments on Ginn Street in my last post, before making that comment on the extension of Crinigan.

H1NG0 said :

They COULD do something about this – construct the last part of Crinigan Circle. But that’s just my logical thinking..

There is already a third servo in Gungahlin, has been for some time, the Caltex at Gold Creek.

Wasn’t it posted on RA a while back that the roof at the Amaroo servo is too low for delivery trucks to get under?

I know it might be a bit of wishful thinking, but I dont suppose a brand new shiny servo would bother installing ‘pay at the pump’ pumps? Id imagine since most of the income is from the expensive products in the shop though, that we’ll still be stuck with no* pay-at-the-pump services in the ACT.

* Woolworths exclusively accepting their own payment methods doesnt count.

“guy names Cervo owns a Servo?”

Very clever p1, but I think you’d find that Cervo is pronounced Chervo

With two nearby servos, in Phillip for instance, the lower-piced one would match the other fairly rapidly.

I reckon Gungahlin Al has a bit of a point here, although I’d hardly say that two servos situated next to each other stifles competition. What does make sense though, is that without a direct line of sight there would most likely be some delay to the inevitable price-matching, as the servo would have to rely on other sources for a price report. I’d imagine area managers specifically drive past competitors while doing their rounds (at least, they always used to), changing prices as they arrive at each store.

Unless of course they also watch each other and match when one puts the price up, knowing that they are then safe to do so without loosing business.

In this case their incentive would be to keep their price where it is, because they know they’d be attracting most of the custom. What they’d lose in margin they’d more than make up in volume.

Similarly there’s an incentive for the first station in that instance not to put their price up, since they know they’d lose most of the business (as long as the lower price is still profitable).

If one of them could get away with charging a higher price, then that would show a lack of competition.

True. Unless of course they also watch each other and match when one puts the price up, knowing that they are then safe to do so without loosing business.

Does anyone else chuckle to themselves every time they hear that a guy names Cervo owns a Servo?

From what I can gather service stations in Canberra tend to follow a pattern of “competitiveness” anyway.

Obviously I don’t see all the servos in town, but based on my observations, Shell Curtin and BP Phillip are often at the cheaper end of the scale. All the Braddon servos are at the mid-upper range and BP Kingston plus the Belconnen servos are hit and miss, sometimes very well priced, but not that often.

The independent Caltex at Lyneham fluctuates wildly for some reason. One day it will be close to the cheapest fuel in town, it seems, then the next day it will raise its prices by as much as 15 cents, when no other outlets in town have done the same. I like supporting them, but their pricing has become strange and erratic over the last 12 months.