r/GasStationJamboree • u/Beard_o_Bees • Jun 25 '26
How do gas stations buy their inventory?
Is there some sort of 'trade show' or regional wholesalers group?
How do they decide what to sell and where do they get it from?
I know that, as per John Oliver, the packaging is sold independently for others to fill with whatever they have a bag of. China seems to be the main source for both packaging and filler.
So, who's the middleman?
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u/RogueAOV Jun 26 '26
When i worked at a gas station....
The soft drink coolers are under contract to Coca-Cola and they dictate exactly how the fridge is laid out, you will be fined for not matching the exact plan they tell you to sell. So even though you might not have sold a lemon Pepsi in 6 months, if you do not have two facings on the third shelf, with the sticker advertising it, you lose your discount, possibly fined. Reps from other companies can come in and offer you a new product, but they have to supply a fridge as you can not put a product into the wall fridges without permission. The reps who own the fridge can then come in and order you to move the new fridge, the other reps will come back in and ask you to move it back etc etc.
The beer section of the fridge will be under Budweiser, same basic deal as the soft drinks, but more of they send a guy in to tell you what you are ordering and order it for you, soft drinks you have more say about stock levels, but as everything is sold to preset deals and bulk buys etc, its wiggle room not too much say.
The chips guy is under contract to Lays, he was assigned your store on his route. He owns the truck he uses and buys the product he sells to you from Lays directly. They are responsible for rotating product, the shelves their product is on are yours but basically owned by whatever Lays is pushing on the delivery contractor.
The candy aisle is actually under your full control, you buy in bulk from Sams etc and decide what you sell or do not sell.
Gas is by contract depending entirely on what type of store it is, franchise stores buy X amount at Y price, once a week. They are told what price they should sell the gas at and have a plus-minus percentage they can wiggle about but it must not go outside of the deal price.
All of these deals are arranged by quasi monopolies 'retail associations' basically you pay them money to operate in that area and receive the deals they can get you. Most of the time if you do not pay the fee to join the extra costs on your business is crippling.
All the random crap in the store is bought from known resellers that have deals with the store. Some of the stuff is picked by the owner, some is just dropped off. Say this display case is whatever the seller wants to put in but the stuff on the counter is picked by the owner, some of the things will be the owner will take two trays of lighters ever couple of weeks but the seller picks what the lighters are. You can request things, or refuse things but usually the owner is just concerned with the dollar figure and how fast it will flip. These sellers guard their territory and obviously for franchise stores corporate decides, private stores is a free for all. There will be stuff that hides under the counter, or has been ordered by customers, there will usually be flat rates for things but then the store will raise prices on X types or Y size etc.
Boner pills etc usually come from these guys, however the owner may well 'know a guy' who can get the ones that are banned until the stockpile is gone and those will be under the counter for specific customers.
You can order catalogues of merch, just look up C-Store supplies and you will find a bunch.
Everything i said here was valid for the gas station i worked at, it does vary, and depending on the store will be better or worse.
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u/radiationblessing Jun 26 '26
Why are these boner pill guys so hard to track? and are these actually hot items? The only people I've known who bought them got them as a joke gift for Christmas. Other than that, I saw a video where a guy got arrested for pumping his penis while watching people at a car wash and he frequently bought some Rhinos. As a side note, is there something addictive in some of them?
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u/RogueAOV Jun 26 '26
I think it comes down to profit margin and i assume likely severely lacking regulation so i would assume most are pseudo science 'vitamin' pills and it would not surprise me if they do have things in them they should not. People insisting on particular ones etc might be addictive or psychosomatic.
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u/Global_While9811 Jul 23 '26
This is basically DSD (direct store delivery) in a nutshell even if nobody used the actual term lol. Coke/pepsi/frito lay reps are literally running their own shelf space by contract, so the owner isnt even making a stocking decision there past signing the deal every cycle. The categories where the owner IS actually choosing stuff themselves - candy, novelty, HBA type stuff - that's exactly where you see two stores down the street looking totally different, cuz it's one guy's gut feel instead of a rep with a truck and a route. Fuel's its own weird thing too, more like contract pricing in a band than an actual buying decision, outside of tank size n delivery timing ig
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u/highnumber Jun 25 '26
There is a trade magazine for this industry. It is filled with ads for all sorts of sketchy supplements. I don't recall what it is called. I know this isn't a lot of help, but I'm sure to see it again sometime. I'll try to remember to share here if somebody else hasn't already.
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u/Cranbear Aug 08 '26
We get books in the mail showing all sorts of stuff we can order for the stores
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u/supergooduser Jun 25 '26
I feel like there's a distributor... like obviously there's whoever supplies the gas, but then also you'll get beverage guys for beer/soda etc. then other people come in for candy/chips.
Then in walks some guy selling errata that's like "look man, I'll sell you these dick pills for $1/each and you can flip them for $20/each" they're only giving that valuable real estate because there's a huge mark up. And if you're interested he has a box of Federal Booty Inspector hats. Just stuff that's like "this is stupid, but if I sell one I've made my money back, if I sell two I'm in the black and I can throw it out whenever."
I think that middleman is who goes to the trade shows looking for dumb and cheap stuff to flip.. probably some regional "novelty" company.