This is more of a Pit thread in spirit, but its also a GQ. I received a 50$ cash card for Exxon or Mobil gas stations. According to google, there isn’t an Exxon or Mobil within 50 miles of where I live, Kansas City. How can this be? Why would this be? There are like 20 each of every major franchise you can think of here. Why not Exxon or Mobil?
Most gas companies are still quite regionalized, or at least have distribution of their outlet retail stores based upon their old regional territories. Mostly, those territories are based upon what happened when the old Standard Oil trust was busted into pieces.
Exxon explained at Wikipedia is an example, it was formerly Standard Oil of New Jersey. So is Chevron (the result of the Standard Oil of California part of the trust). Texaco was a non-Standard Oil company started in Texas; for a long time that brand was limited to the South and Southwest. You still don’t see it in Ohio, that I can recall.
Someone with more knowledge can probably give you the details behind why the two companies don’t have gas stations in the Kansas City area.
Does anyone know if there is some type of contract, or unspoken agreement? It would make sense that they are simply regional-- if there weren’t several in rural Kansas and Missouri. Why is it that oil companies can be blocked out of certain cities, but not, say, McDonalds (And yeah, some places dont have McDonalds, but there are no cities I know of that are Burger King and Wendy’s only, etc…)
I am almost certain I stopped at a Mobil near Kauffman Stadium last June right after the game I attended. I think it was off of I-435, but I couldn’t swear to that.
It’s historical, mostly. Back in the old days when Standard Oil of New Jersey was broken up, Mobil was in the Northeast, American/Standard was in the Midwest, Esso/Enco was in the South, etc. And that’s the way it was for many years.
Gradually, things began to loosen up, but for a long time the only way one of the regional companies could get into a new market was to buy up existing gas stations. That’s why there may be an isolated Exxon here and there in the Midwest, but not a huge number.
On a related note, there’s what Buffalonians call “EBB”, or “Everywhere But Buffalo”, a phenomenon where national chains that are quite common nationally will avoid the Buffalo region while setting up shop in similarly sized and/or nearby metropolitan areas. If they do ever appear, it’s only after they’ve saturated the market in every other part of the country; for example, Buffalo was the last good-sized metropolitan area to see Lowes and Best Buy appear.
The list of EBB chains is long; a summary of the biggies include Staples, Chipotle, Whole Foods, H&M, American Apparel, P.F. Chang’s, California Pizza Kitchen, REI and Jamba Juice. Buffalo doesn’t even have a Buffalo Exchange or Buffalo Billiards. Ikea announced last year that they would never open in Buffalo, ever, despite being in smaller markets across the world, and a long-term strategy of expanding to smaller markets away from the coasts. Buffalo isn’t on Sonic’s list of future markets, either … the only city in the country missing.
Buffalo has a very low average income so that might be one reason chains tend to stay away.
When Standard Oil was broken up the agreement gave each “Little” Standard a right to use the name “Standard” in its territory.
So Chevron could use the name Standard Oil of California in its territory. And it used Chevron outside its territory. Standard Oil of Indiana used to use the name Standard in its territory (the midwest) and the name American outside it’s territory. (American was later shortened to Amoco (AMerican Oil COmpany)
Standard Oil of New Jersey used Esso (get it S-O the initals of Standard Oil).
So right from the start the divisions of Standard were pretty much compartmentalized in their territory.
Later almost all of the “Little” Standards dropped the name Standard. Some like Standard Oil of New Jersey became Exxon thus it didn’t need Esso anymore. Standard Oil of New York became Socony (Standard Oil Company Of New York) and merged with Mobil keeping the Mobil name.
However Chevron operates a number of stations as STANDARD in a few states just so it can keep claim to the trademarked name.
So there is nothing to prevent gas stations from opening a station but they don’t benefit from the national advertising. For instance, if EXXON wants to run a national ad, it will pick the markets which to air it. So if there is only one Exxon in Kansas City, it won’t get any help with the advertising.
Since most gas stations are franchises or just purchase the gasoline, you have to keep that in mind.
So if you’re gonna choose a franchise it probably makes more sense to buy into one that is established in your market.
Like Markxxx says, most gas stations are franchises, but to expand on that a little the mom-n-pop gas stations are becoming rarer and what’s more common is that a market will be dominated by a few local moguls who will own a large number of stations that will typically all be branded the same (though not necessarily-- in my town one of them runs both Sinclairs and Conocos for reasons I’m not entirely clear on). So, in addition to the historical reasons, it may just be because the crotchety guys who own all the gas stations in town just don’t like Exxon or their franchise policies. Also, for a long time, Mobil used to be one of the few brands where the stations were mostly owned by the oil company, but they started selling them off last year.
Also, since gasoline is gasoline as opposed to fast food where there’s a specific uniform taste that comes with the franchise there’s not really the marketing draw of a particular brand of gas. People don’t say, “mmm… I wish we had an Exxon here. I’m jonesin’”.
This might explain why you can’t find a station.
Short version for the link lazy - Exxon is exiting the retail sale market and selling all stations to independent operators who have to pay royalty fees if they want to continue to use the name.
Bootis, there appears to be a station in Olathe. If you can get verification that it still exists it might be worth the drive to fill up and buy up all the snacks.
I just did a search on Gas Prices and couldn’t find any Exxon in Kansas City.