When you hear the word wholesale, you generally think of lower prices, albeit for products purchased in vast quantities. For a product such as fuel, lower costs by any means are a significant advantage. It can also be advantageous to buy fuel in large amounts if you run a facility or fleet, as fuel would be one of your major overhead expenses.
Wholesale fuel is any fuel you buy from a wholesale fuel supplier as opposed to a retail station. The wholesale price for fuel is considerably lower than what you would pay for retail fuel. As with anything wholesale, fuel supplied by wholesalers is generally sold to retailers who, in turn, sell the fuel to consumers for its final use. However, some wholesale fuel suppliers also make fuel available at wholesale prices to organizations in the industrial and government sectors.
The difference between wholesale and retail fuel boils down to pricing and accessibility. When you purchase fuel from a retail service station, you pay the marked-up retail price plus applicable taxes. For wholesale fuel, you pay just a portion of the retail price-per-gallon.
Access is another one of the main advantages of bulk fuel because the supply is in your onsite storage tank for anytime access. You can also contact a wholesale fuel supplier whenever you need refills. Here are five advantages of wholesale over resale fuel.
With wholesale fuel, the supplier comes to your site approximately once each month to fill your fuel storage tank. This way, you have a fuel supply onsite at all times. Anytime a fleet vehicle or machine runs low on fuel, you simply activate the fueling process from the storage tank. With this bulk supply of fuel at your disposal, operations become a lot more efficient because you don’t have to send vehicles out to service stations.
Retail fuel, by contrast, can be a time-consuming task, as vehicles have to take time to drop by service stations.
Wholesale fuel lowers the frequency of downtime because you are always stocked with an ample supply of fuel for your vehicles and factory equipment. If something runs low on fuel, you simply connect the machine or vehicle to your storage tank and fuel away. You never have to halt productions or move deliveries down the schedule due to a fueling issue because all vehicles and machines have instant access to fuel.
With retail fuel, you run the risk of downtime because fleet vehicles must pull aside at stations when they need fuel. In some cases, the station might not have the right fuel, and the vehicle will either need to reach another service station or pull aside for assistance. Either way, instances of downtime are costly and can severely impact your company.
With wholesale fuel on site at all times, your facility and fleet become more productive. When fueling issues do arise, they are solved on the spot with no timeouts or halts in deliveries and productions. This way, deliveries can always be carried out on schedule. On the more efficient days, you can even exceed expectations.
Regarding productivity, wholesale bulk storage fuel could give your fleet the advantage over competitors that rely on retail fuel. While they send vehicles out to get refueled, you can be sending your fleets out to delivery destinations. Wholesale fuel will also allow your factory machines to run more efficiently with fewer instances of failure, whether you operate on a daily, nightly or 24/7 schedule.
Best of all, wholesale fuel can be accessed at any time, even on weekends and holidays. Shipley Energy provides wholesale fuel to manufacturers, fleets, and government agencies in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and beyond, around the clock, 365 days a year.
With a constant supply of wholesale fuel on hand, you can dispatch your fleet to more delivery destinations in a given day or week. Anytime a fleet truck needs more fuel, you simply hook it up to your onsite storage tank, and the vehicle is good to go on its delivery route within minutes. Between your fleet lot and the delivery destination, vehicles will rarely require stops along the way for most nearby and intrastate deliveries.
Fleets that rely on retail fuel, by contrast, are often slowed by stops at fuel stations at various points along delivery routes. Even on routes that cross just a few county lines, a truck might have to stop and pay for the more expensive retail fuel. Even worse, vehicles will often have to wade through traffic congestion and stop lights to get to these fuel stops.
When you have your own onsite bulk fuel supply, fleet trucks can simply fuel up before they depart and stick to the fastest, most efficient routes of delivery without interruption.
When you buy fuel from a wholesale supplier, you cut out the middleman and therefore get your fuel for less. With a wholesale bulk fuel supplier at your service, the amount of money it would take to fuel a single truck or factory machine is significantly reduced in the span of a week. If you take consider that same amount of savings and multiply it across your entire fleet or factory arsenal, the savings are tremendous, especially when you multiply that number for a whole year.
With retail fuel, you would instead have to pay whatever price the service stations charge in a given area. At the end of each fiscal year, the amount you would pay for retail fuel would ultimately claim a larger share of your profit margin. Overall, wholesale fuel could save you tens of thousands per year in fuel costs.
The financial advantages of wholesale fuel add up on numerous fronts. Regarding fuel costs, you save money you’d otherwise spend on the retail markup price. When it comes to bills and accounting, the cost of wholesale fuel is easy to determine, predict and calculate. The wholesale fuel option takes a lot of stress and headache out of budgeting for a fuel-reliant organization. The benefits of wholesale fuel cover the following 10 areas.
With wholesale fuel, your fleet could reap tremendous savings over competing fleets that rely on retail fuel. Each time you have your onsite storage tank refilled, the price you pay for that fuel is only a portion of what that same amount of fuel would cost if you purchased it at the markup retail price.
You also save money because the trucks in your fleet can stick to their delivery routes without having to exit freeways and wade through traffic to make time-wasting and money-consuming stops at retail fuel stations.
Wholesale fuel is offered to factories, fleets and government facilities at competitive prices. Moreover, you can pay for the fuel with plans that work best for the purchasing entity. Depending on your cash flow cycles and budget, you could negotiate a service payment plan that works best for your business.
Shipley Energy allows customers to choose between plans where the rate is locked-in at the start of the contract, regardless of prices in the fuel market during any given month for the duration of the contract. This allows you to save even more money if fuel prices spike in the weeks that follow the start of your fuel plan.
Wholesale fuel is the more affordable option for fleets, factories and government facilities because the fuel is sold at just a portion of its retail value. For any organization that uses fuel in bulk quantities, wholesale fuel is the wisest choice from a fiscal standpoint. Even if you have to pay more upfront to have your tank filled than you might pay over the course of several stops at retail fuel stations, the savings kicks in overtime thanks to the overall lack of any need for service stations.
When you enlist the services of a wholesale bulk fuel supplier, you can rely on accurate and timely billing each payment cycle. This is one of the significant advantages over retail fuel, as service stations often charge different rates and taxes apply in certain jurisdictions. When you sign a service contract with a wholesale company, you know what you will be getting regarding bills and pricing.
As long as you read the fine print, you can also tell whether any hidden fees or taxes will apply to the fuel. Shipley Energy sells fuel to customers with no hidden fees or taxes. The money you expect to pay when you sign on for service is the amount you will be billed, and you’ll get that bill at the exact time you plan to receive it.
One of the most significant benefits of wholesale fuel is the predictable costs and pricing structures. Unlike with retail fuel, the costs of which can be hard to predict and a headache to calculate, the prices of wholesale fuel are consistent in each billing cycle.
When you buy your fuel from a wholesale bulk supplier, you can predetermine the amount that you will pay on each bill. Therefore, you won’t have to worry about fuel costs fluctuating due to a volatile market or unforeseen circumstances regarding fuel availability on a given route.
For organizations that rely on fuel, the wholesale option makes things easier on the business end. Thanks to the predictable costs and consistent billing, you can accurately earmark a portion of your budget for fuel expenses for each fiscal year.
If you relied instead on retail fuel, you would need to earmark more money due to the unpredictable nature of the costs involved. Consequently, you would eat into your profit margins. By comparison, the wholesale fuel option helps you run a more profitable business.
If you secure a contract with a wholesale fuel provider with locked in rates, budgeting is a relatively easy task. All you need to do is take the monthly amount you will pay for fuel and multiply that figure by the number of months in the upcoming fiscal year.
If you relied on retail fuel, budgeting would involve far more guesswork, and you would have to overestimate the costs to cover any unforeseen fuel-related expenses that might arise. With wholesale fuel, the task of budgeting is a cut and dry process.
The more predictable prices and expedient budgeting that come with the wholesale fuel option also makes things easier for accountants. Your accounting team will no longer have to track many different fuel costs from various stations because fueling occurs onsite.
The costs associated with fuel are simple to calculate for record keeping and easy to forecast for upcoming budgets because the billing is consistent and the prices are as stated on a given contract. Shipley Energy works with customers to make sure you always understand how the price structure will work on the plan of your choice.
As you calculate expenses for any given time frame, your accountants are less likely to make mistakes due to lengthy lists of fuel receipts. The numbers calculated for each reporting period are almost always accurate when you use wholesale fuel because the price and payment-frequency of your most critical expense are streamlined. This allows your company to accurately assess budgetary needs on a year-by-year basis and allocate monies according to spending trends, all without fear of inaccurate reporting figures.
With wholesale fuel in your bulk storage tank, the solution to most emergencies that could occur is already at your site. If a truck within your fleet lacks enough fuel to embark on a delivery route, you simply fuel up the vehicle right then and there.
If your factory machinery runs out of fuel, you simply fuel back up with no time lost. If weather conditions render the fuel stations in your area inaccessible, it won’t matter because you won’t need their services. Wholesale fuel takes one of the significant causes of fleet and factory emergencies right off the table.
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Advantages of Partnering With Shipley Energy for Wholesale Fuels
Shipley Energy is the leading fuel supplier for factories and fleets in Pennsylvania and Maryland. When you partner with us, you get the following six benefits.
Whether you need gasoline, diesel, biodiesel or heating oil, Shipley Energy has you covered. We deliver around the clock throughout the year, even on weekends and holidays.
At Shipley Energy, we work with our customers to ensure they understand the terms of each plan. You’ll even have the option to choose a payment option that suits your budget.
Shipley Energy bills customers with transparent fees that contain no hidden extra costs or taxes. Whether you opt to pay a locked-in fee or according to current fuel-market values, the pricing is always honest and predictable.
With Shipley Energy at your service, you can save money over the course of each fiscal year because the unpredictable costs and hassles associated with retail fuel are removed from the equation.
Shipley Energy uses advanced tracking technology to determine when fuel tanks are in need of refills. When you partner with us, your storage tank will never run too low, because we will know when you need more fuel.
Shipley Energy provides fuel services to customers in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Virginia and West Virginia.
Shipley Energy has provided fuel to organizations around the mid-Atlantic for the past nine decades. In doing so, we have helped fleets boost their fulfillment rates and reduce downtime. If you run a fleet or industrial facility, it is essential to have access to wholesale fuel on a nonstop basis. Our fuel service can save you from the hassles and financial blows of downtime. Contact Shipley Energy today to learn more about how our wholesale fuel solutions can help improve your business.
