TOP STORY: Discount petrol war intensifies across Bay

By David Dunham
Discount petrol competition is escalating in Tauranga with service stations, supermarkets and other stores fighting head to head for the consumer dollar.
This week New World and Pak'n Save stores entered the fray, offering fuel discounts of up to 4 cents a litre to customers who spend over $40. Their rivals, Woolworths, Foodtown and Countdown, began running a similar scheme last month.
New Plymouth-based FuelSave, which announced its intention to offer fuel discounts in Tauranga earlier this year, has now come back with a version it believes is much better and will give more benefit to motorists.
Luke Watson, founder and director of FuelSave, said he planned to launch his loyalty programme in the Bay in the new year.
Under the supermarket scheme, customers who spend $40 in one transaction at any New World or Pak'nSave store in Tauranga will receive a discount docket for 4 cents a litre off fuel at any participating BP station.
Last month, supermarket chain firm Progressive teamed up with Shell to offer the first nationwide grocery fuel discount programme in New Zealand.
Under the programme, people who shop at any of Progressive's 153 Woolworths, Foodtown and Countdown supermarkets and spend $40 or more will receive a fuel discount voucher of 4 cents off per litre. Lynette Gillies, owner of 10 Shell service stations in the Bay, including one in Matamata, today told the Bay of Plenty Times the response to the loyalty scheme had been "huge" from day one.
"It's only been going for a week and a half and I thought it would take a full week to get going but it's been successful from day one. People have gone in and done their shopping and well. We're receiving hundreds and hundreds of dockets a day, our forecourts are chocca."
Ms Gillies said the promotion had met all expectations.
She said she had just returned from Australia, where service stations had a similar scheme over there for some time. She said if their results were anything to go by, she could expect the response to get bigger.
Nicki Donnelly, operations manager for PNS Partnership, which looks after four Bay of Plenty BP sites, including BP Pongakawa, said it was early days but so far the response had been good.
" People have been very positive about it and glad something like this has happened. "
Mr Watson said he had received a number of calls from people in the Bay of Plenty.
The new scheme will be different to the original one in that it will be customer led.
He hoped between 50 and 100 businesses would take part in Tauranga while there would be about six petrol stations where people could redeem their money off vouchers.
The exact amount people will have to spend at a store to get a voucher has yet to be finalised though it will be about $20 and in return the customer will get one voucher giving them 5 cents off the price of a litre of petrol.
"We have now made it customer driven. The customer will go to a business because they will know they are involved. They will then say 'you are part of the scheme' and will take their docket to a petrol station," Mr Watson said.
"What we found in Taranaki is that businesses tend to slacken off in their promotion of it over the counter. Unless we had people going round and reminding them, it was a burden to businesses.
"All we are looking to do is to go to certain businesses and say you will save money. It is a way of getting people in the door.
"The BOP market is high on our list of priorities and we expect to offer the FuelSave programme there shortly."
Servo Savers was not available for comment.
Petrol war strategies:
* New loyalty scheme providing discounts on petrol will start in Tauranga in the new year. For every qualifying amount spent (between $20 and $30), the customer will receive a 5 cent discount fuel voucher. Customers will be able to redeem all their vouchers at once at participating petrol stations meaning you could get a full tank for free.
* In a different scheme launched on Monday, people who spend $40 in one transaction at New World or Pak'nSave stores will receive 4 cents a litre off fuel at BP stations.
* A rival scheme run by Woolworths, Foodtown and Countdown supermarkets started last month. Customers who spend $40 or more will also receive fuel discount of 4 cents off a litre.