An Ayrshire petrol station owner admits he’s trying his best to be there for people in a time of need.
Fuel prices have skyrocketed this year, with petrol and diesel hitting over £2 per litre at many stores in recent months.
But Robin Bawa of Gulf, Burnpark Services, in Kilmarnock has been aiming to keep his prices lower than the likes of Tesco just up the road.
He admits it’s been challenging keeping the prices down, but the Ayr Road shop owner admits he couldn’t look himself in the mirror if he didn’t help out the community.
He told the Kilmarnock Standard: “We are trying to help people out. It’s as simple as that.
“We took over this petrol station in 2016 and we have been either the cheapest or at least matching Tesco since day one.
“No one really paid attention to that since fuel was affordable which is brutally honest.
“Since the fuel became more expensive people started to think about who’s cheaper.
“At one point we were 23p a litre cheaper than Tesco, it was unbelievable.
“People started to realise these numbers and we have been getting busier.
“We have been cheaper than other supermarkets for months now, we are here to help people.
“We are not here to profiteer, in times of need we cannot call ourselves a community shop if we don’t look after people in the community when they need us.
“We have always been fair and honest, of course we take a bit of profit to cover overheads, but we go as cheap as we possibly can.
“Every little helps and we always do what we can to help.”
He added: “I hope people remember stores like ours if fuel costs ever go back down, we try our best to offer the best service to our customers.
“We have noticed a great trend in people staying loyal to us.
“In a time of need we are making sure that we are not profiteering and I think people are starting to appreciate that.
“There is customers who we’d never seen before shopping here a few weeks ago, and now we seek them all the time.
“This couldn’t be done without the members of staff though, we were not prepared for this volume of customer but they’ve all pulled together and got through it.
“The good thing about that is that it’s created more job, I am looking to hire six more people which is helping out on both sides.
Robin reckons that supermarkets are being greedy with their prices.
He said: “Supermarket costs for fuel is much cheaper than us because they have their own haulage companies.
“They buy it in bulk too which should make it cheaper, they are buying it directly too but we are still managing to be cheaper which just shows you.
“It shows these places are out just to make money, which is sad and I hope people realise that.”
Robin feels that smaller shops need to stick together and fight these high prices with solidarity.
He said: “In other parts of Ayrshire, other small retailers aren’t dropping the price cheaper than supermarkets so the big stores don’t feel the need to drop down.
“In Kilmarnock the trend is changing and these places are dropping prices because retailers like ourselves are not giving in to the high prices.
“I could just have decided to stay in line with Tesco all the time, but that’s not helping people, it’s just not good enough.”
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