Would a fuel boycott work?

Dendenden

Some years ago an attempt was made to force suppliers to drop prices by arbitrarily selecting one to boycott. The theory being that for eg Shell is chosen - no-one buys from Shell until they drop the price by 10p. Then everyone buys shell and another is targeted....

Anyone recall if this took off or had any impact?

Benny2020

They make very little money from selling petrol, certainly not anwhere near 10p a litre.
The government make the money, tax and then tax on the tax.

Bigphil1474

Don't remember it happening, and can't see it working. Lots of companies have corporate accounts with one supplier, and not everyone has a choice where they fill up. Plus, coordinating it would be a nightmare. I think we're stumped until the lower oil prices feed through. Having said that, I wouldn't buy petrol from any oil extractors' petrol stations - if they get their own oil, then they don't have to pass on the higher oil market prices to their forecourts, they just choose to and watch profits triple.  

ontheroad1970

Benny2020 said:

They make very little money from selling petrol, certainly not anwhere near 10p a litre.
The government make the money, tax and then tax on the tax.

You take their word for it when their profits trebled in the last quarter?  What a novel view

user1977

ontheroad1970 said:

Benny2020 said:

They make very little money from selling petrol, certainly not anwhere near 10p a litre.
The government make the money, tax and then tax on the tax.

You take their word for it when their profits trebled in the last quarter?  What a novel view

You're buying fuel from retailers, not the companies pumping it out of the ground.

ontheroad1970

user1977 said:

ontheroad1970 said:

Benny2020 said:

They make very little money from selling petrol, certainly not anwhere near 10p a litre.
The government make the money, tax and then tax on the tax.

You take their word for it when their profits trebled in the last quarter?  What a novel view

You're buying fuel from retailers, not the companies pumping it out of the ground.

Shell published their profits recently.  Up almost 300% in the first quarter.

Benny2020

That's not from selling petrol,

Benny2020

Why do people object to profits?.
Oil has transformed this world into a better place, people also complain about drug companies making money without ever thinking about the benefits.

Grumpy_chap

ontheroad1970 said:

Shell published their profits recently.  Up almost 300% in the first quarter.

The press reporting of these types of parameters (and I think BP a few days earlier) is always appalling and simply presented to create reaction.

Profits "up 300%" means nothing if the previous profits used as a comparator were shockingly poor.  The extreme case would be a business that made a loss in period A but turned to profit of £1 in period B - that could be presented as "profits up by infinity".

Profits £7bn means nothing without the context of turnover.

I keep my comment to this thread short and concise and will not answer the initial question.  Readers may wish to recall the Forum Rules in any further comment:

"Active boycotting
We appreciate emotions can run high should you experience poor service from companies, but we cannot accept active calls to boycott organisations as we are unable to verify the service you received."

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/site/forum-faqs/

Aretnap

Dendenden said:

Some years ago an attempt was made to force suppliers to drop prices by arbitrarily selecting one to boycott. The theory being that for eg Shell is chosen - no-one buys from Shell until they drop the price by 10p. Then everyone buys shell and another is targeted....

Anyone recall if this took off or had any impact?

It was a silly idea which did the rounds on Facebook for a while. The only people who did it were a handful of people who believe everything they read on Facebook, so naturally it had no impact whatsoever. 

Even if lots of people had done it, there's no reason to think that it would have any impact on petrol prices overall. If nobody bought from Shell, it would actually make it easier for other petrol companies to put up their prices - as they would not be having to compete for custom with Shell. So most people would end up paying more for petrol. Eventually Shell might reduce prices, but if everybody then started buying from Shell again then it would enable Shell to put their prices back up again, and equilibrium would be quickly be restored.

If you want petrol prices to come down then as a consumer there are essentially two things you can do

(1) Always buy the cheapest petrol you can find, regardless of who sells it, and make the companies compete harder for your custom, or

(2) Use less petrol (whether by driving less, getting a more fuel efficient/electric car, taking off your roof box, or by driving/accelerating more slowly) and you will reduce demand relative to supply, and help bring prices down. This one is particularly good as even if prices don't come down much, you will still spend less on petrol. 

Petriix

I've been boycotting fuel for 17 months now and it's definitely reduced my costs. Since switching to an EV it's costing just 1.1p per mile.