Quote:
Originally Posted by RM7
There may not be the over-the-top ridiculousness of today where there's 4 stations on a 4-way intersection, one on each side, and 4 more a block away...but I suspect you will have no problem at all.
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Exactly! Just like there's no problem today getting horse feed or saddles. I live in the middle of a major metro, and I'm not more than 20 min away from the nearest equestrian supplies store.
The question isn't "is it a problem", the question is, "is it cheap & convenient?"
Because being inconvenienced is most Westerner's greatest fear.
We can break it down from three perspectives to see what's going to happen:
(1.) Who owns US gas stations?
~60% are owned by a single owner / single site operator
~15% are owned by entities with no more than 50 sites (most own 10-12 sites)
~25% are owned by entities who own 50+ sites
And, just a few who own 1000s of sites; e.g., 7-11 + Speedway owns ~7500 stations making them the largest fuel retailer by site count in the US
What's it all mean? Well, there ain't gonna be be consolidation because no single move gets any single player any amount of sites ... which means 75% of US gas stations are pretty economically vulnerable to "pull" refinery business model that requires them to order X# of gallons / month ...
(2.) Who uses gas stations?
Well, in covid scarred 2020 gas sales fell~15%
but convenience store sales went up!. That's notable for two reasons:
(a.) People like & need convenience stores
(b.) Even when those people don't need gas
(3.) Where are gas stations?
Valuable real estate! Without getting into details, there are lots of sites on freeways and, to your point, at major intersections.
Add it all up and, yeah, gas stations off major freeways & at major intersections are gonna be fine ... but those sitting on valuable real estate away from major roads ... well they'll have to convert to convenience only because they won't be able to guarantee refineries X# of gallons per week contracts
BUT they won't lose foot traffic because people like convenience stores ...
Ultimately most sites on valuable real estate will convert to store-only formats, and probably sell to Amazon Go, Walmart, Target, Walgreens, CVS, WaWa, etc