Family business Oasis Services is returning to Jet after a gap of five years, lured by the fuel provider’s electric vehicle (EV) charging proposition.
From Monday (January 6), the forecourt in Long Riston, Hull, will replace Gulf branding with the yellow and blue signage. Prior to Gulf the business had been with Jet for around 25 of its 40 years.
Managing director Oliver Blake says that the arrangement on EV charging was too good to turn down, with Jet initially paying to lease part of the forecourt’s land to install, and cover the cost of two ultra-rapid Jet Charge-branded chargepoints.
“Everyone was very close on fuel pricing, but nobody else was offering anything like what was proposed by Jet for EV charging,” says Blake. “Jet will pay us for two bays and once we hit a certain threshold we will switch to a profit share. It means there is no initial risk involved.”
Jet announced last summer that it was rolling out Jet Charge to its dealers after a two-year trial at four of its 11 company-owned forecourts. It said that its point of difference was the simplicity of its pay as you go customer service, with no app to download or a minimum charging payment required.
It said that its model, in which it charges customers direct for electricity, meant that forecourt operators did not have to worry about the amount of charges needed to pay back for the equipment.
For Blake, who plans to show the EV charging prices on the main fuel pole as well as next to the chargers, the arrangement also means he is backing a nearby business. “Jet is a good local brand with its Humber refinery within a 50 minute drive from us,” he says.
Also, he says, the pricing he has achieved on fuel will enable him to continue his reputation of being competitively priced on petrol in the area.
It is a selling point that Blake has spent a lot of time finessing, using Petrol Prices to establish where to fix weekly pricing. He then posts on social media a photo of his updated pole price, quoting the average supermarket price in the area, which he tries to match or improve on, and also Petrol Prices as the source.
“It just so happens that we have been below everyone else for a while,” says Blake, who shares the information on Facebook every Monday or Tuesday. He also spreads the message on what he calls “local traffic, travel and village rant groups”.
Blake says: ”Dad had always had low fuel prices, but never really pushed it. He had the same prices as supermarkets years back when margins were far lower. And when I joined and once covid was out of the way I said ‘why don’t we advertise this?’ and we started to push out the prices every week and it really took off.
“We have people travelling to us from Bridlington, which is around 18 miles away. People still have the idea that supermarkets are cheaper on fuel than independents, even though that is not particularly the case,” says Blake.
