Owain Hughes, owner of Damory Garage in Blandford Forum, Dorset, recently made a very successful switch from Esso to Shell to help boost his premium fuel sales.
The petrol station has been in Hughes family since the 1980s, when Hughes’ grandmother owned it. He has worked at the site for some time but took over running it around 10 years ago.
Hughes says the site was Shell when he was much younger, then switched to Esso for 18 years.
The switch back to Shell came about because he was looking for a supplier who could help the site increase its sale of premium fuels. With Esso, Damory sold super unleaded but not super diesel and customers were asking for it. Of course, Esso offers premium fuels but Hughes believes they don’t have the same recognition and following as Shell’s V-Power.
Hughes approached Shell about a supply deal and they had an initial conversation. “I sat there thinking they were never going to offer us a decent deal, but we wanted to have the conversation. We were really surprised that they came through with a really good offer.”
The site has eight pumps on four islands and sells just under 4mlpa. Two of the eight pumps dispense super unleaded and two super diesel.
Damory switched from Esso to Shell at the end of June but already Hughes has seen changes in his customer base.
“We’re obviously tracking sales; we use Edge, which we get as part of our Shell deal. The number of non-fuel card customers we serve has increased since joining Shell. And I would say that we sell slightly less fuel on a fuel cards. We’ve maintained our volume, but we seem to be getting more, non-business customers and that’s better for our margins.”
As for those sought-after premium sales, Hughes says he’s been really impressed with the super diesel. The site is always quiet during the summer holidays but just one week during August it sold 5,000 litres of super diesel. “So, it went from zero to 5,000 litres, which is brilliant. And sales of super unleaded have gone up by 6-700 litres a week,” explains Hughes.
He says the switchover in fuel brands went very smoothly with Shell putting in a 4G router so card payments could be taken straight away. With the rebranding, the site was closed for the odd hour here and there but there was no major disruption.
Hughes says customers have only had positive things to say about the switch, with many commenting on the Shell app, which they really like. “A lot of our customers are RAC and AA members and they get promotions through the app so they like that.”
Damory’s till didn’t have a function where customers could redeem the Nectar points that they got with Esso. “It’s nice now that customers can build up their Shell points and use them for a discount or get a free Costa Coffee,” says Hughes.
The site held an official launch day last week when Shell supplied a branded F1 car via its partnership with Ferrari. Obviously it was a big hit with customers. They had queues of children lining up to have their photo taken with the car.
Hughes didn’t organise any other activity because he publicised the fact that the site was going to have the F1 car on Facebook, and the post got around 40,000 views.
“We had other plans to do different giveaways and bits and bobs, but after the Facebook viewing numbers, we were too worried that the place would be completely gridlocked.”
It was an extremely successful launch and Hughes now hopes it will bring him some new customers.
