A forecourt refurbishment has resulted in a huge uplift in sales of premium fuel for independent retailer Goran Raven – thanks to the introduction of premium grade diesel and extra nozzles for premium grade petrol.
Goran, who owns Raven’s Budgens Abridge in Essex, invested heavily in a complete refurb of his forecourt, with everything replaced or upgraded (such as the tanks being relined), except for the Shell canopy.
He added Shell V-Power diesel for the first time (eight nozzles) and increased the number of nozzles for V-Power petrol from two to eight.
He told Forecourt Trader: “Premium diesel is a real revelation for us. We’ve only been selling it for 37 days and we are doing 1,000ltrs a day. We are seeing really good fuel sales – our V-Power petrol sales are up too.”
One of the keys to Goran’s continuing success is how competitive he is on fuel: “When we opened our super diesel was cheaper than other site’s regular diesel,” he explained.
His site has a busy Facebook page where he promises followers that he will keep his fuel prices as low as possible and updates it regularly with the latest prices.
The forecourt has the latest Tokheim pumps with long hoses – and also media screens. “We use Canva to create our own content so before Christmas we put our Christmas trading hours up. We also use the screens to highlight promotions; people don’t have anything else to do while filling up other than look at them.”
The refurb also included the addition of an AdBlue pump.
The forecourt closed for two months for the work to be carried out but the Budgens store stayed open. Goran said: “It’s a testament to the strength of the Budgens offer that despite the forecourt being shut and our car parking spaces being cut from 30 to 20 during the work, we maintained shop sales of circa £30k a week.
“The project was a big investment but I took the view that we are future proofing the site so it was the sensible thing to do.”
He said that he was keen to add EV charging and had been trying but had not found the right solution yet.
