Pricing Software Enhances Brookshire’s Fuel Ops

Regional independent Brookshire Grocery Co. has improved the performance of its fuel operations -- including timely market updates, margin and volume control, and price documentation -- since deploying a fuel pricing solution for its fuel operations approximately two years ago.

The grocer, which operates more than 80 fuel centers across 150 sites, is using a suite of products from Florham Park, N.J.-based KSS Fuels, including its PriceNet, PriceNet Mobile, and KSS Visualizer solutions.

“PriceNet has helped us improve our reaction to market changes by giving us better control of our margin and volume,” said Rachel Gee, director of fuel operations for Brookshire. “With the extreme volatility of the retail fuel industry, it’s comforting to know that we have PriceNet to guide us in a direction of improved performance.”

Brookshire’s selected the KSS Fuels product suite to improve and simplify the fuel pricing process by gathering data that enables the pricing team to manage the fuels pricing process more effectively and efficiently.

PriceNet is a comprehensive pricing solution developed to support the key tasks and stakeholders involved in retail fuels pricing. According to KSS Fuels, high levels of automation and an ‘exception-based’ approach ensure a rapid response to competitors and market conditions and allow pricing analysts to leverage the power of pricing analytics. PriceNet also includes PriceNet Mobile, which delivers real-time fuels pricing via handheld mobile devices such as PDAs and Blackberrys.

KSS Visualizer is a Web-based data visualization tool intended to discover significant changes in key performance measures such as volume, running rates, margins, and competitor price position, at any level of the business from individual grade/store to overall network.

Tyler, Texas-based Brookshire’s operates more than 150 supermarkets under the Brookshire’s Food Stores and Super 1 Foods banners in Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. More than 80 of them offer fuel centers.