My mom and dad used to work at a company that owned about 100 gas stations. They had a guy who drove around all day just checking prices. And other guy who is t

My mom and dad used to work at a company that owned about 100 gas stations. They had a guy who drove around all day just checking prices. And other guy who is the meat space equivalent of this algorithm. They came up with some baseline rockbottom pricing base on how much they paid for the gas. They'd try to price it based on competition. But you can't just price it at the competition. You have to consider other factors. If the station accross the street has a better location (easier access to the road is common, in a parking lot with other stores) then you have to be lower to get business. People will cross the street for 2 cents, but they won't for no difference. If you have a big spread in the rock bottom and competition, it might be worth lowering to gain more business. But you never made much money on the fuel itself. You made the profit on cigarettes, lotto, soda, and snacks. The company made more money with low gas prices. Sounds odd. But people get angry at the gas station owners when prices is high, even though they are taking at most 10 cents a gallon profit, usually way less. So they are less likely to spend money at the convenience store. The company ended up selling all the stations off. You can't run them like a business now that most are run by families without steeply discounted labor. My father in law did that for 10 years. Never turned a profit, ended up handing the station back to the franchisee for free rather than continuing. It's a cutthroat business. I wouldn't want to be a part of it.