After you have created your prices and turned them on, at some point, they will all need to be updated. The frequency at which you update your prices is up to you. Depending on the type of price you’ve designed, or the type of time period selected for the price (day, month, or year-long), you will need to update your prices to reflect changes in your product costs, freight rates, or other price components.
Keep in mind that if you have built a large number of prices sharing common indexes between them, updating a large number of prices across all of your facilities is easy to accomplish. You can update any aspect of a price, including the quantity offered for sale, at any time. Other pricing tools like contingent pricing and Excel-based indexes also allow you to easily update prices as often as your business requires.
This article outlines how to edit prices, and some of the factors to consider regarding how often you should update your prices. We will also discuss Gasology tools that have been developed to make updating your prices easier.
How to edit prices
Prices can be updated from several locations. Changes made at the index, structure, and program level (via discounts) will all produce changes to the final price a customer sees.
Indexes can be edited manually or by updating them in the Gasology Excel Index Publisher or by adding adjustments to a structure. Adjustments can also be made at the customer, and customer vessel levels.
Editing the indexes applied at each of these different levels is easy; simply click the pencil icon next to any index and make your updates, then click Save. Your price is now updated to reflect your index changes.
You can always add another index by clicking the + button if the index you need has not yet been built. For more information on indexes, please visit to the linked article.
Specific or relative daily prices
Daily prices come in two varieties, specific and relative. Specific prices are tied to a specific date and will roll off the calendar once the date passes. Relative prices will roll over to the next calendar period and stay on the calendar until they are removed or modified. Think of relative prices as prices that will always exist for today or tomorrow.
If you have created a specific price, and the time period for that specific price has come and gone, you will need to recreate the price from scratch and update the price’s indexes when you want to offer that price again.
If you have created a relative price, it will remain active until it is either turned off or modified even as a calendar period comes and goes. Relative prices only need to have their indexes changed to update the price.
Time period
The length of time a product a price is valid (day, month, or year-long time period on Gasology) has a large impact on the amount of risk associated with it. It’s reasonable to assume prices for a single day have lower exposure than prices with month-long or year-long time periods that have more exposure tied to them.
Prices with longer time periods (like months or years) will need to be updated more frequently than a daily price. Updating prices is easily achieved by either editing a manual index or by updating the index in the Gasology Excel Publisher.
Prices with a lower margin will also warrant more attention to accommodate fluctuations in market prices; this is true for time periods of any duration.
Firm or indicative
Firm prices should also be checked often to see if an adjustment is required when product costs change. Firm prices imply instant reservation and do not require reservation confirmation by a merchant to complete a reservation; therefore, firm prices should reflect an accurate price on the merchant’s side of the transaction. Ensuring accurate prices can be achieved by regularly updating manual indexes, using the Gasology Excel Index Publisher, or using contingent pricing, which is covered in the next article section.
Indicative pricing requires merchants to confirm a customer's request for fuel before a reservation is approved. This feature provides merchants with an additional level of control to accommodate unforeseen factors impacting their offered prices.
Contingent or originator
When creating prices on Gasology, you can create prices based on your supplier’s prices and therefore update in tandem with your supplier’s prices. When contingent pricing is used, eliminate spread risk, and the need to constantly update your prices, our contingent pricing feature will update them for you automatically.
On Gasology, the originator setting can be used when you control product inventory for the product you’re selling. Refineries fall into this category, in addition to gas stations or other merchants who have bought inventory off-platform. Originators must take care to ensure an accurate product price and update their prices accordingly.
To create a contingent price, toggle from Originator to Contingent when working in the Blending tab. Click the link for more information on contingent pricing.
Open or closed programs
Programs define the number of customers your prices are reaching and determine whether or not your prices are visible by a single customer or hundreds. For programs, this level of visibility is determined by creating open or closed programs. Open programs will be visible to more customers on the platform, and the prices that fall under those programs will need to be accurate.
Up next
Learn how to check your updated prices that customers will see by clicking here.