IT’S hard to know whether motorists would feel less or more outraged by petrol prices if they understood the thinking behind them.
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Drivers shake their heads in frustration at the seemingly random ways in which prices move about, but perhaps ignorance in this case really is bliss.
Because when cities only a short distance apart have a significant petrol price discrepancy, or when prices rise in the days leading up to a public holiday long weekend, or when an independent retailer is able to offer a lower price that the big chains can’t seem to find the margin to match, it’s hard to imagine anything more complicated is behind it all than pure opportunism.
The news that Orange has been up the wrong end of the NRMA’s weekly list of petrol prices in NSW for the past couple of weeks will have had plenty of people around town furrowing their brow.
Bowser Buster, which ranks 57 locations in NSW, placed Orange in 43rd position for unleaded petrol with an average price of 141.5 cents per litre for the week ending January 29.
Dubbo was ranked 44, with an average petrol price of 141.9 and Bathurst was ranked 47, with an average price of 142.3 for the same period.
In that latest list, Orange’s average unleaded price was more expensive than Forbes, West Wyalong, Hay and – wait for it – Broken Hill. In the case of Broken Hill, Orange was almost 10 cents more expensive, a startling figure.
It doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense, as the NRMA said this week when running an eye over the prices across the Central West in comparison to the rest of the Central West and the state.
The curiosity about petrol prices is that, in an age in which every consumer feels more empowered than ever before, motorists still allow the service stations to make all the rules.
The same people who keep a close eye on their grocery prices at the checkout, and are more than willing to support a different supermarket if they feel they are getting a raw deal, will return to the same service station each week for their petrol no matter what price it is offering.
It might be habit or apathy, or it could be the difference only adds up to a few cents a litre and it hardly seems worth it.
But it is worth it – if only to remind the petrol businesses that it is the consumers who hold the power.