Asda has today become the first supermarket to publish local fuel prices online allowing motorists to check the price of petrol or diesel before they get in their car.
The supermarket has confirmed that fuel prices at each filling station will be available alongside other key information on the Asda Store Locator pages https://storelocator.asda.com/
The latest fuel prices will be available on the store locator page at 10.30am each morning and will show the previous day’s closing price. Asda is continuing to develop a system that will show real-time pricing and expects this to be in place in the coming months.
Asda is also working with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) as they develop an industry-wide fuel finder scheme.
Last month the CMA claimed it would have a scheme to make the daily fuel prices of major retailers freely available to consumers by the end of August.
This followed a report by the CMA into the road fuels market that claimed competition between the supermarkets was not working properly.
It called for the creation of an open data fuel finder scheme which would give price comparison sites real-time, station-by-station fuel price data for all fuel retailers.
The government has agreed to bring in legislation to enable this, and the CMA scheme is intended as a temporary measure until this can be done.
An Asda spokesperson said: “Asda is proud to be the price leader in the fuel and by sharing our prices online customers will be able to find the best value at the pumps before they get in the car.”
However, RAC fuel spokesman Simon Williams claimed the move would have little effect on prices. He said: “While it’s good to see the supermarkets start to publish their pump prices, we don’t believe displaying them on websites will suddenly make retailers start charging fairer prices, particularly as free mobile apps such as myRAC can actually compare prices among all fuel retailers – large and small – wherever they are in the country.
“Real competition is the key, and this is something we are sadly lacking at the moment, other than in Northern Ireland where fuel is more than 4p a litre cheaper than the rest of the UK.
“We don’t believe we’re likely to see real change until we have an official price monitoring body, as recommended by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), that has the power to fine companies that don’t properly reflect significant downward wholesale market movements on their forecourts.”
