Genius in marketing
Every penny counts in these days of impossibly expensive gasoline. That’s why the latest gimmick at a gas station left me amused and awed at the audacious marketing.
I know better than to drive around and around town looking for the best deal, because you waste too much gas trying to find it. Instead, I know where the cheaper gas stations are in different parts of town. Today, I checked to see that one of my favorites was within a reasonable price range these days, at $4.39 per gallon.
It’s important to pay attention at the pump. More gas stations are charging a variety of fees, and you may miss it if you don’t look carefully enough. I refuse to use one gas station because they don’t take credit cards and charge a fee for using debit cards. One of my favorite and cheapest gas stations was crossed off the list when they started charging for debit. Others charge a credit price, but may not charge for debit. But you must use your debit card as debit, and not credit.
But this little shell game was a new one. I didn’t see any signs posted that said debit was cheaper, or that there was a different price for credit. I noted that the price on the pump said $4.44, remembering that the sign from the road said $4.39. I was a little irritated and thought it was disingenuous to still have the lower price posted from the road.
But I continued to process my card as debit, and when it went through, a little note flashed on the display.
“Now lowering your gas prices.”
It lowered my price to $4.39, and made it seem like that was quite a deal. Even though that’s the advertised price on the large displays.
At the end, another notice flashed, that I had saved 97 cents on my purchase.
Hah! It’s marketing genius at its best. They don’t tell you it’s cheaper to use debit, don’t give you instructions to make sure you run your card as debit, and then try to make you feel like you got a secret special.
Don’t believe it. Pay attention. I’ve learned to look for signs and see whether the price changes according to how I run my card. I almost never pay cash, because I never carry it. I have been known to leave a gas station that does not have credit card machines at the pump and demand that purchases be prepaid. I understand why gas stations want you to pay first, but I have many other choices out there. I also get frustrated when my receipts don’t print, because if I wanted to go in the store, I would’ve gone into the store. Paying at the pump is a matter of convenience for a busy world.
And even though I seldom do much with my receipts besides shove them in my wallet, it’s important to get them. As my dad has told me, if I’m ever mistakenly accused of driving off without paying, I will have proof that I did pay. You can’t be too careful. And a receipt will also show proof of how much you paid, in case an unscrupulous scammer somehow intercepts your data.
As an aside, I don’t think the gas station fees have reached my part of the Midwest, according to my family. I wouldn’t know. When I bought $120 worth of gas during my recent stay there, I used the cheapest place in town, near my dad’s house. That place is so old that each pump only serves up one kind of gas, and there are no credit machines. I break my no-pay-at-the-pump rule just for that station, only because it’s so close and so cheap. You have to be cheap when you’re borrowing your dad’s gas-guzzling Explorer.
So I ask my readers in other parts of the land: What’s your experience? Have these stupid fees reached you yet?
