Price Wars in the Panhandle

I watched a news story the other night on the late local evening news about a couple of gas stations that got caught up in a price war. For the locals, the two competing gas stations are at the intersection of 390 and 389 (about a mile away from my church building as a matter of fact).

Apparently, the proprietor of the Texaco always sets his gas prices a penny cheaper than the Chevron across the street. And, on Monday, the folks over at Chevron had had about enough! So, over the course of Monday, both gas stations changed their prices ELEVEN times -- undercutting each other by a single penny. It was hilarious when a reporter from NBC affiliate WJHG inverviewed a Chevron cashier during the piece:

"It's been a gas war going on because he keeps trying to go a penny under us and we're just trying to prove a point that we can afford losses we're going to try to keep our customers, but why can't he just try to stay even with us, quit competing with us."

The two gas stations settled their dispute at $3.68 on Monday night -- about 15-to-20 cents below the local average.

As I drove to church tonight, I couldn't help but want to go out of my way to see what the prices were this evening.

Chevron: $3.81
  Texaco: $3.80

They showed them!