Retail Watchers

storewanderer wrote: ↑April 29th, 2021, 11:39 pm
There was a time in the past where Sam's Gas was a .05 upcharge for non members and open to the public. That changed years ago and they are members only unless local law dictates otherwise.

How far in the past are you referring to? Was it nationwide or only in selected markets?

From what I know, New Jersey is the only place where local law requires them to be open to the public. However, up until COVID hit, they were handing out free 1-day passes quite liberally so you could go inside, get a pass, and then ask the attendant to activate the pump for you.

Super S, Sam's Club doesn't allow non-members to shop with a gift card like Costco does. I think their logic is that if you get a gift card and aren't a member, you can use it at Walmart.

HCal wrote: ↑May 4th, 2021, 10:33 pm

storewanderer wrote: ↑April 29th, 2021, 11:39 pm
There was a time in the past where Sam's Gas was a .05 upcharge for non members and open to the public. That changed years ago and they are members only unless local law dictates otherwise.

How far in the past are you referring to? Was it nationwide or only in selected markets?

From what I know, New Jersey is the only place where local law requires them to be open to the public. However, up until COVID hit, they were handing out free 1-day passes quite liberally so you could go inside, get a pass, and then ask the attendant to activate the pump for you.

Super S, Sam's Club doesn't allow non-members to shop with a gift card like Costco does. I think their logic is that if you get a gift card and aren't a member, you can use it at Walmart.

Not sure if it was nationwide but it was in the past 15 years and it was in California where I observed it.

Sam's Club lets non-members shop the website with a 10 percent upcharge. The fee does not apply to California.

By law, you can purchase alcohol or use the pharmacy without a membership.

Alpha8472 wrote: ↑May 5th, 2021, 12:20 am Sam's Club lets non-members shop the website with a 10 percent upcharge. The fee does not apply to California.

By law, you can purchase alcohol or use the pharmacy without a membership.

BJ's used to do the same in stores (shop with an added fee for non members), not sure if they still do. Also unsure if that ever applied to the gas (since normally a customer is scanning their card at the pump for that).

Meanwhile, the two Sam's locally (one now closed and added to the Walmart to make the largest Walmart store in the country, last I knew) never had fuel stations.

Alpha8472 wrote: ↑May 5th, 2021, 12:20 am Sam's Club lets non-members shop the website with a 10 percent upcharge. The fee does not apply to California.

By law, you can purchase alcohol or use the pharmacy without a membership.

Out here in Arizona Sam's Club is open to members only. However, if you are a Walmart+ member you can access the Sam's Club fuel center if use your Walmart+ app (and get the same price that Sam's Club members get for fuel).

A Sam's Club fuel center in Scottsdale, AZ used to do the 10 cent upcharge for non Sam's Club members (it's located adjacent to a Walmart Supercenter). When the Sam's Club closed the fuel center closed for a few months and then became rebranded as a Walmart fuel center (only one in the state, I believe).

BillyGr wrote: ↑May 5th, 2021, 11:40 am

BJ's used to do the same in stores (shop with an added fee for non members), not sure if they still do. Also unsure if that ever applied to the gas (since normally a customer is scanning their card at the pump for that).

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For a while a BJ's near me (in PA) had non-member pricing on the pumps, but they seemed to have ended that a few years back. BJ's hands out memberships like candy though (always deals floating around for like $25 a year or such), so it's kind of a no-brainer to get one if you live nearby,

Are there still gas shortages? In California, the prices are not much higher and there is plenty of gas.

Alpha8472 wrote: ↑May 18th, 2021, 5:43 pm Are there still gas shortages? In California, the prices are not much higher and there is plenty of gas.

Gas Buddy has a tracker on their web site where you can get the status of gas station's supplies based on member reports. The site appears to provide nationwide data.

https://tracker.gasbuddy.com/

In the DC area there seem to be still stations without certain types of fuel - ie no diesel but gasoline or regular and premium but not mid-grade. The wholesale outages seem to be minimal at this point and no long lines at stations either. The panic buyers have some supply of their own to work through now...

I was waiting in line behind some people at Costco filling plastic containers with gasoline. Is there supposed to be some kind of limit on how much gas you can buy? I would not store gas at home. The fire danger is so high right now due to the drought that entire cities could be overtaken by firestorms again. The gas stations should have some kind of limit to avoid running out of gas.

In areas with supply shortages, some gas stations were potentially limiting supply but it is difficult.

They can easily limit supply by lowering the card authorization limit to whatever they want the maximum purchase to be and then do a velocity limit of 1 on credit cards so someone can't try to run the same card twice, if they don't want to have a person working outside manually monitoring what is going on. This change may be more difficult to make when connected to a major fuel brand for card processing, but still possible. This doesn't stop someone who has two different cards but once a second card attempt is tried and denied and that sends a message to the clerk inside, they could potentially address the situation. The clerk can always shut a pump off that is in the middle of running for any reason such as if someone is smoking at the pumps, etc. Dispensing fuel into an unauthorized container would certainly be reasonable grounds to stop a pump.

It is not unusual for folks to store gas at home who have a gas powered lawn mower but I think (hope) most have a proper container who do that. Gas is no joke and these folks who are improperly storing gas are playing with fire literally. I expect they will use it soon enough so the risk will decrease.