As many of our members are already aware, we are now offering premium #2 fuel oil in the North Country (see area map). Keeping with our philosophy of maintaining total transparency, we called all of the oil distributors that advertise in the Adirondack Journal and asked what their price per gallon was for 150 gallons of premium #2 fuel oil on that day. We noted the names of the companies and their prices and published them in the Adirondack Journal along with our price. The advertisement ran in the Adirondack Journal on November 18, 2011. The response was interesting. Many people called to question the prices. As a result we took on 32 new members. The most interesting call came from Mr. Dan Alexander, editor of the Adirondack Journal. Mr. Alexander stated he received several calls from several of the oil distributors whose pricing appeared in our advertisement and some had threatened to sue him. He questioned where we got the distributor’s prices and we explained. The end result is that Mr. Alexander will no longer allow us to make such comparisons in his paper. We report this news to you, not because we think that Mr. Alexander was wrong in his decision, but rather because of the way the oil distributors reacted. When they learned that their fuel oil prices were being posted in the newspaper for all to see, the fuel oil distributors could have reacted differently; they could have defended their pricing by using the old “Our prices are higher because our service is better than the rest”, or “Our prices are higher because we have an additive in our fuel oil that make it burn longer”. But we all know what they should do is lower their prices. We welcome out new members in the North Country. You’re going to love the way we save you money.
Sincerely,
Galway Co-op.com LLC
