Put simply, Bellinger is a family-owned local business with a JET petrol station. Established all the way back in 1932, it’s on its fourth generation, run by Oliver Dimbylow and his brother-in-law Joe Bellinger. It’s been through some changes over the years, but the existing site including the petrol station has been there since 1989.
Back then it was a smaller site, but today it does an impressive 6m litres a year as part of a Isuzu, Vauxhall and Subaru business. They used to be more rural, but with the growth of the village they have become an ‘edge-of-town’ location that is now used as a local convenience store. “We’ve really benefited from the additional traffic and footfall.” says Oliver.
With a Sainsbury’s that is aggressive on price nearby, they have had to find their niche in the local area as they couldn’t compete on price. “We had to make sure we could compete for the customer without it being at the detriment of the business,” he explained.
This is what is so great about Bellinger. It really is a family-run local community site. The way the staff greets customers, the easy access on site, jet washes, car washes and so on. There is an extremely popular hot food counter that produces their own sandwiches and baguettes. “We have to give customers a reason to come back to us even if the fuel price isn’t cheaper than Sainsbury’s.”
However, a lot of the recent success is because they are now able to match or beat Sainsbury’s regularly, which further increases the footfall on the site. They also attribute some of their success to EdgePetrol, which is provided by their fuel supplier JET at no cost as part of their fuel supply contract.
“We would wait for the end of the day or the next day before seeing that we weren’t doing as many sales as we thought. The increased visibility and the real-time data that EdgePetrol is giving us has made it a lot easier to make the right decisions that we might not have made before.”
A typical decision might include not lowering the price because sales volumes are ahead of what is expected. This often means Bellinger is taking 1ppl to 2ppl more margin than they would have before. It works the other way around too where they can cut the price faster to pump volume up to replace it.
“Edge gives us increased visibility at a speed that we didn’t have before. We’re making decisions quickly and that can be incredibly useful.”
Whilst Edge is helping them today, Oliver also has one eye on the next five to ten years. “The shop is becoming more and more important. The key is to keep trying to innovate within the space.
If you are a JET dealer and would like to sign up for EdgePetrol, you can get started with the implementation process by contacting us today.
