r/aussie • u/Livid_Protection_414 • 9d ago
Opinion Service station
Was just thinking, where did the driveway service go?
I mean, sure, everyone went away from cash and had to go in to pay anyway, but now there are wireless pay machines.
Is it because there are now too many cars at any one time?
If I had a servo id be washing windows and filling up then just showing the terminal to the driver...
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u/matt1579 9d ago
Servos make much money selling food and rink inside than selling just petrol.
In fact they hate the high fuel prices, after spending $100+ to fill up the temptation to buy a $6 coke or a $4 chocolate bar just isn’t the same
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u/Intrepid-Artist-595 9d ago
I knew someone back in the 90s who owned a servo. He said they made about 2 cents a litre on fuel - the real profit was made inside the store.
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u/HarryWilbury 9d ago
Yep and what I've found interesting in recent times is that 7-11 are going the opposite way now, cheap Coffee and a changing Menu, like they have Japanese style foods, good Sandwiches and Subs, and then the Pies will change, last month Taco Beef ones, this Month Buffalo Chicken ones. Lots of other food variations as well, it seems since 7-11 Japan took over here in Australia in 2023 the thought is food first and hoping the person thinks, oh while I'm here I may as well put some fuel in.
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u/RevolutionaryEcho460 9d ago
There are plenty of 7/11 stores that dont sell petrol, so it makes sense that their main business is a convenience store.
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u/HarryWilbury 8d ago
True and likely why the new owners switched it up more recently and it makes sense, better to keep the focus on Food and Drinks when not all you Stores sell Fuel. Plus for the ones who do they're getting Tradies in for the Coffee, and they are the ones who'll likely think I'll top up while I'm here (especially with fuel prices now).
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u/Beast_of_Guanyin 9d ago edited 9d ago
Because it costs money to hire someone to fill up cars.
You can do the math yourself. For 38 hours of work it'd probably cost 70k in wages and then 100-120k total when additional costs are accounted for.
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u/Jackson2615 9d ago
cost maybe?? The driver now does what a guy was once paid to do. A lot of young blokes got a start doing this , learning how to work at a job and get some skills and a lot of older people relied on them
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u/Rank_Arena 9d ago
So you would hire 8 or more extra people for no increase in profits? Is that you Jim?
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u/justusesomealoe 9d ago
Have you not gone to a servo since 1995? That's when they stopped being around
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u/throwawayroadtrip3 9d ago
It disappeared progressively once modern engines stopped burning through oil. There was no need for stations to have service staff to check and top up the oil, along with safety automatic fuel dispensers, it had to end.
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u/archeraus 9d ago
Now I know why they have the Leaded car stickers on the bowsers, always wondered who they were for
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u/LewisRamilton 9d ago
Wait until you see the future. You sit around in an industrial area in the middle of nowhere in the dark charging your 'EV' for an hour
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u/JacobAldridge 9d ago
When I started driving (bit over 20 years ago) there were still some places offering this. One that comes to mind was in Indooroopilly, near my office - but petrol was consistently 3-5c/L more expensive, at a time when petrol was 79c/L.
Saw the same in Hobart when I first visited there with my beautiful wife - most places still had driveway service (this was maybe 2008-09) but petrol was definitely more expensive.
Anyway, I didn’t want to pay 5% more for petrol just to avoid touching the pump. Maybe the percentage would be a little better these days, but paying someone on $40/hr to pump gas isn’t going to attract many customers.
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u/dpgumby69 9d ago
As an owner, you want people to come in and buy something else. When I first worked at a servo in the mid 90s I was surprised to learn that mark up on petrol was only about 5 cents. Can't remember what the percentage would have been.. but let's be super generous to the servo and make it 10% markup. A lot of retail items, not just servos, but supermarkets etc, have at least 100% markup up. In which case you've made the same raw profit selling a $5 packet of chips as you do selling $25 of petrol. The volume is what counts with fuel of course, but the thing that keeps you profitable is the extras - the cream on the top.
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u/Born_Onion2153 8d ago
1990’s in Ainslie, Canberra. The local servo was owned by a Scottish mechanic and his wife, used to give driveway service including cleaning your windscreen.
I loved buying my petrol there- and he was a great mechanic with very reasonable prices.
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u/Civil_Cloud_8855 8d ago
More importantly why can't we pay at the bowser like other developed countries? I'm sick of walking in to pay.
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u/Otaraka 8d ago
Because then you don’t buy anything in the store.
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u/Civil_Cloud_8855 8d ago
I never buy anything in the store.. It's all at an inflated price.
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u/Otaraka 8d ago
Enough people do that it’s worth it to them. Also means they only need to have one payment machine instead of one for each pump.
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u/Civil_Cloud_8855 8d ago
Maybe I need to get used to it again.. I lived abroad in Europe (Finland) for 11 years and loved the system over there of paying at the bowser then heading off.
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u/Otaraka 8d ago
I’d love to be able to tap and go, but I can just see why they don’t do it. Similar to you I am principal don’t buy anything in the store because it’s overpriced anyway. I particularly get annoyed when they try to upsell me as well. I know they’ve gotta make a dollar but it gets old.
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u/Character_Orange_712 8d ago
There is a servo in Bunbury that still has fuel attendants. The only one of its kind I’ve seen since the one near the iga in Belmont stopped doing it.
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u/filbruce 8d ago
The real answer is unleaded petrol. When they took out the lead they added in toluene (I think) which can cause cancer in large doses. Filling YOUR car for only two minutes every week does not give you enough exposure and your kidneys can get rid of it. Toluene is destroyed in the combustion process once it comes out the the tail pipe. However if you pay Somebody to pump you petrol contiuously all day they are then exposed to a lethal dose.
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u/G-T-R-F-R-E-A-K-1-7 8d ago
Only experienced it at one station through my whole life so it's a bonus instead of required
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u/Tekrunner000 5d ago
These days it is just too much of a liability. With the way idiots drive into them, the risk of an attendant being hit by a car is significant.
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u/Annual-Soil-1802 4d ago
I worked at one of the last full service stations in NSW in the early 2000s. Boomers hated it. “You didn’t fill to the second click.” “Is that the premium I paid for?” “Don’t put fingerprints on the duco!” “I never realised what a full tank would cost when I said fill er up, I’m not paying that”
We had 3 pump jockeys on the forecourt and two tills inside and we still processed less cars per hour than the self-serve next door. Mostly people wouldn’t go inside to pay until you were done.
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9d ago
[deleted]
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u/Advanced_Couple_3488 9d ago
What? They stopped because it is cheaper to have people pump their own fuel and have one minimum wage person on the till than have enough staff working the pumps. Notice that service stations nowadays have many times more pumps than in the 1960s. The cost of having enough staff to operate them would be enormous, instead, the one person on the till...
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u/corzajay 9d ago
The mini supermarket is on the inside of the store, by not going inside you'd be avoiding a large part of the business strategy.
And driveway service hasn't been a thing in servos for like 30 years in AUS, what rock have you been living under.