Petrol/diesel priced at xxx.9 per litre.

corktina

Is there anywhere at all where the price is shown as anything other than one ending in .9?

Is there any point in garages doing this if all their price rises and falls are in full cents anyway?

Atlantic Dawn

It's just a marketing gimmick, like good being prices at €x.99, makes the consumer think the item is cheaper than it really is. Never spotted anything else myself, not even rounding up to the cent.

Miscreant

corktina wrote: »

Is there anywhere at all where the price is shown as anything other than one ending in .9?

Is there any point in garages doing this if all their price rises and falls are in full cents anyway?

I got petrol last week for 155.8 per litre is that is any different.....
I think the fuel stations (and most retailers of goods) do it because people mostly look at the numbers to the left of the decimal point and think they are getting a bargain.

L1011

Applegreen usually price at .8

Distant family member with a station always does .5 but he's incredibly contrarian.

dgt

MYOB wrote: »

Applegreen usually price at .8

Distant family member with a station always does .5 but he's incredibly contrarian.

There's a Top station not too far away from me who always sells their fuel ending in .5

corktina

dgt wrote: »

There's a Top station not too far away from me who always sells their fuel ending in .5

but if they always up or down their prices by 1c increments is there any point? If this was outlawed, is there a chance they would round the prices down to be competitive?

The Bishop Basher

corktina wrote: »

dgt wrote: »

There's a Top station not too far away from me who always sells their fuel ending in .5

but if they always up or down their prices by 1c increments is there any point? If this was outlawed, is there a chance they would round the prices down to be competitive?

Why outlaw it ? Just round it up in your head. You know what you're paying, pay it or go elsewhere.

corktina

wow never thought of that!

eth0

Saw a filling station at 162.9 today. We're well past the point now where that .9 of a cent makes any difference. There's one I know of that does .7 as well

Its silly carry on and the .9 should be got rid of really. It makes me want to put a few 1c coins into the vice and grind about 10% off them and use them when paying for petrol

AugustusMinimus

eth0 wrote: »

Saw a filling station at 162.9 today. We're well past the point now where that .9 of a cent makes any difference. There's one I know of that does .7 as well

Its silly carry on and the .9 should be got rid of really. It makes me want to put a few 1c coins into the vice and grind about 10% off them and use them when paying for petrol

People can price whatever unit of petrol they want at whatever price.

I can see no justification at all forcing fuel stations to price a litre of petrol to the nearest cent.

eth0

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

People can price whatever unit of petrol they want at whatever price.

I can see no justification at all forcing fuel stations to price a litre of petrol to the nearest cent.

The fact that it's impossible to pay a fractional cent and it will be rounded up anyway

CiniO

I see this stupid trend to subtract €0.001 from the real price for marketing purposes almost everywhere over EU.

However there are still countries which don't do it

RXMPS

CiniO wrote: »

I see this stupid trend to subtract €0.001 from the real price for marketing purposes almost everywhere over EU.

However there are still countries which don't do it

Gas is cheap in Poland.

Why would anyone drive petrol or diesel when it's that cheap.

AugustusMinimus

eth0 wrote: »

The fact that it's impossible to pay a fractional cent and it will be rounded up anyway

If you are buying more than 10 litre of fuel, the overall difference will be greater than one cent.

eth0

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

If you are buying more than 10 litre of fuel, the overall difference will be greater than one cent.

But most of the time people don't buy fuel in multiples of 10 litres.

Would a pump even be accurate to such a small amount? .1 of a cent probably stays in the nozzle unless you stand there for half an hour trying to shake out the last drop by which time it would be after evaporating

AugustusMinimus

eth0 wrote: »

But most of the time people don't buy fuel in multiples of 10 litres.

Would a pump even be accurate to such a small amount? .1 of a cent probably stays in the nozzle unless you stand there for half an hour trying to shake out the last drop by which time it would be after evaporating

It doesn't matter if you are buying in multiples of 10.

If you buy a quantity greater than 10 litres, there will be a difference in price of at least 1 cent.

I have no idea how accurate petrol pumps are. Regardless of how accurate they are or the fact that I might save 5 cent on a purchase, I'd rather have that 5c in my pocket rather than in the garages till.

I would also imagine there would be a saving on not pushing through pointless legislation.

CiniO

RXMPS wrote: »

Gas is cheap in Poland.

Why would anyone drive petrol or diesel when it's that cheap.

These figures are probably from about year ago, so they changed a bit now.
I think LPG is bit more expensive now, and diesel is actually dearer than petrol at the moment...

Anyway - answering your question, people still drive petrols and diesels, as driving on LPG, while having 1 big advantage (price) has plenty other disadvantages.
You have to pay for conversion. You have to service this conversion (changing gas filter, adjusting). You loose some space of your boot for gas tank. You have to fill-up more often as gas tanks are smaller than fuel tanks. You can't use underground parkings. You pay more for annual car inspection (like NCT). You are more likely to be blown into air during accident. Life of your engine will probably shorten due to higher temperature of combustion. Etc, etc. etc...

Even though, I remember reading some figures 10 years ago, and within 15 million vehicles in Poland, 2 million were powered by LPG, which seems actually a lot. I have no clue however how this ratio look at the moment.


There's as well one more reason for not using LPG and surprisingly it's "snobbery".
Some people in Poland would be ashamed to drive LPG powered vehicle, the same as some people from Dublin would be ashamed to drive CN, OY, MO or DL reg cars. Both this are actually a things I can't understand.


PS - When looking at prices, however they are in Polish ZL currency, and at the moment petrol price when converted to euro is about 1.20 you might think it's cheap.
But when you compare it to average salary, I'd say you can easily think of those figures from the picture, like they were in euros for Irish people. That's approximately the amount Polish people have to pay for fuel.

corktina

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

It doesn't matter if you are buying in multiples of 10.

If you buy a quantity greater than 10 litres, there will be a difference in price of at least 1 cent.

I have no idea how accurate petrol pumps are. Regardless of how accurate they are or the fact that I might save 5 cent on a purchase, I'd rather have that 5c in my pocket rather than in the garages till.

I would also imagine there would be a saving on not pushing through pointless legislation.

It doesnt need legislation, just the Oil Companies to outlaw it . It is the .9 that is (for want of a better word) pointless, not any legislation to get rid of it!

If they got rid of it you'll be paying €0.001 more for every litre of fuel you'll ever buy. They're not going to knock €0.009 off the price per litre.

corktina

i wouldn't be so sure.
The .9 is there for marketing purposes, in effect to wring an extra .9 out of us for every litre.

So you reckon if fuel retailers couldn't charge in 0.1c/litre they'd round down by €0.009/l rather than rounding up by €0.001/l? Knocking €0.50 ish off every fuel transaction.

challengemaster

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

It's just a marketing gimmick, like good being prices at €x.99, makes the consumer think the item is cheaper than it really is. Never spotted anything else myself, not even rounding up to the cent.

I've heard the real reason for having a price ending in .99 is so the person has to open the till to get the 1c change, can't just pocket the money... no idea if there's any truth in it, nor can I see it applying to fuel prices in the same way, so..

Also I've seen .8 and .7 in the last few months, and .2 iirc

challengemaster

challengemaster wrote: »

I've heard the real reason for having a price ending in .99 is so the person has to open the till to get the 1c change, can't just pocket the money... no idea if there's any truth in it, nor can I see it applying to fuel prices in the same way, so..

Also I've seen .8 and .7 in the last few months, and .2 iirc

............... I worked in a service station in the 1999, back than the reason you mention wouldn't have any justification, I can't imagine service station stock control and staff anti theft measures have made it any more of a risk.

Fuel sales are linked to the till, don't clock it through the till and it doesn't just disappear

It's the only product for sale that actually scans itself into the system for want of a better way of explaining it

Not to mention folks generally round up there fuel purchase to a euro anyway, these days a €50 or €20 I imagine.


Actually, disregard my entire post, I misread yours, good thing I was all polite and mannerly about it !!!

But about the rumour you heard, easy for staff to have some change themselves to give to folk

AugustusMinimus

corktina wrote: »

i wouldn't be so sure.
The .9 is there for marketing purposes, in effect to wring an extra .9 out of us for every litre.

They will obviously round up. Of that I have no doubt.

creedp

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

They will obviously round up. Of that I have no doubt.

Agree a marketing device supposedly to make you think you are getting someting cheaper than it is. The reality is though very few if anybody buys discrete volumes of fuel. When did anyone last buy 10 lts of fuel. We buy fuel by the euro and so whether it is advertised as 152.9 or 153 cent doesn't mean a whole. Even if you wanted to the pump won't let you stop at a fraction of a cent. What matters is if you are trying to compare like with like and when shopping around I wouldn't be too concerned about frequenting a particular station unless it was materially cheaper than another. Fractions of a cent mean very little. Of course that doesn't mean that someone else might think differently but I don't think passing legislation to remedy this problem is necessary or worthwhile.

AugustusMinimus

I have no idea, why people are calling for legislation here.

There is no problem with pricing at a fraction of a cent at all. None in the slightlest.