Retailing: Changes at the Pump

To an extent that usually amazes foreigners, the gasoline station has become an integral and jarring part of the U.S. landscape. Gas stations often occupy all four corners of a busy intersection, are spaced like pickets along busy highways and spring up virtually overnight in new shopping centers and quiet suburban neighborhoods. Any thing that happens at the gas station affects each of the 95 million motorists in the land—and a lot is happening to both its look and the services it offers.

Last year the nation’s 212,600 stations sold a record 50.7 billion gallons of gas, and the industry’s sales of $20.3 billion ranked it behind only food stores, auto dealerships and department stores in retail volume. The growing interstate highway system, Detroit’s booming auto production and the trend back to larger, more powerful cars (which use costlier gas) have increased gasoline sales another 3.6% so far this year. This summer, gas sales are pushing to alltime highs as more and more Americans—four out of every five of whom drive when they go on vacation—take to the family auto for their annual trip.

To vie for the attention of all these drivers, who pass hundreds of gas stations on their travels, the oil companies are pumping more money into advertising that stresses the individuality and merit of their product. Nearly every brand now touts an additive—TCP, Petrox, Tri-tane, Boron—and a variety of octanes to suit different cars. Sunoco, for example, offers eight different octanes for practically every make and type of car. While the additives do improve auto performance and reduce maintenance problems, Elaine Yarring-ton, American Oil’s marketing development manager, admits: “They do not ultimately result in any significant difference between the brands. As soon as rival company chemists have determined what the additives really are, everything levels off. It’s what comes with the gas that makes the difference.”

Fire Hats & Dinosaurs. The major oil companies are paying dearly to create that difference. Last year, for example, they spent $14 million on 200 million giveaway road maps, more millions for merchandise handed out free or sold at cut rates with the purchase of gasoline. Texaco dealers last year sold 2,000,000 red fire hats with built-in, transistorized loudspeakers for only $3.98, about one-third of the retail price. Sinclair gives away dinosaur-shaped cakes of soap for children, and Pure Oil dealers offer a free car wash with every eight gallons of gasoline, plus wrist watches, movie cameras and coffee pots at cut rates.

To make gasoline buying even more enjoyable, the industry is placing its pumps in more attractive and convenient settings. “Gone are the days of the dirty, square metal station set on a piece of property 50 yds. by 50 yds.,” says Clifford Venarde, Shell Oil’s real estate manager. Major oil companies last year earmarked 65% of their capital expenditures for sprucing up and enlarging existing stations and for building handsome landscaped new ones. Shell, Sun Oil and Gulf are combining many of their new stations with restaurants, and Sun has opened a station in Canton, Ohio, with a built-in, drive-in branch of the Harter Bank & Trust Co. In Des Moines and Fort Worth, Continental Oil is building drive-in grocery stores next to new filling stations.

Hair Cuts & Cattle Feed. In its drive for more sales, the gasoline industry is also building hundreds of huge truck stops that cater to practically every need of the drivers. At Wildwood, Fla., Pure Oil has just opened a 23-acre, $550,000-station that includes—in addition to 28 pumps—a motel, restaurant, barber shop, clothing store and free shower-&-steam-rooms. In North Lima, Ohio, an American Oil truck stop includes feeding facilities for traveling cattle and a rabbi to supervise shipments of kosher meat, which must be watered down every 72 hours between the slaughter and its delivery.