Ah rstuart, but you also have to pay for is double time plus costs
for when he is not attending to you, waiting for his next customer.

If you want that kind of convience on a Sunday and the Govt mandates
all those conditions, well the consumer should pay, fair enough.

Yabby, are we bored and looking for someone to annoy? Or maybe you missed your cup of coffee and aren't firing on all neurons.

1. This isn't petrol. I haven't checked, but I doubt they change the price during the weekend, any more then they change the price of their ice cream.

2. Lets pay the attendant $100/hour. I sure you'll agree this is a more than reasonable wage even making allowance for all the add ons. Then that 30 seconds cost them $0.83. We are trying to account for a $26 difference here.

3. You seem to forget I was comparing the price of LPG in the 9Kg bottle versus delivery of the same product sold at the same store at the same time, albeit in a slightly different format and thus subject to all those same convenience costs you seem so keen on. Yet the price was over 300% more.

4. Since we are on the subject of business costs. Capital cost to sell bottled gas: a cage and a padlock. Capital cost to sell vehicle LPG: Large LPG storage tank with emergency sprinkler system, pumps, bowers, electronic link ups to the cash register, covered park for the car while filling. And which one attracted the 300% premium?

Three things:
last I looked, service station attendants were not paid double time on Sundays - they have an EBA in which they cleverly bartered away all their benefits in exchange for a tiny increase in normal hourly rate; secondly, I haven't noticed too many service stations doing it real tough lately, despite the frequent bleatings of the few small players not to have sold out to the chains; I can buy the same gas fill at my local camping supply store for $23 - on a Sunday. The attendant has to check my bottle, clean the thread if it's not up to scratch, then fill it. It takes long enough that i usually leave to do oher shopping. If they can do it at 2/3 the price, in a "boutique" operation, why ar you defending the profiteering of the service-stations, Yabby?

Well it appears there is no easy fix.

The suggestion of retrofitting the bottles for use at the pump seems ok, however, to fill a gass bottle one must allow a certain amount of gas to escape so the bottle is 'full' as a bottle is not 'full' until you gat a continuous stream of gas escaping. Typiclly, this may take 10 to 15 seconds after gas starts to spill.

Now not anly would this be dangerous, as there are those fools who instist on smoking at the fuel station, but it is also the most likely cause of 'under filling'

Now because many bottles are not completely empty when either exchanged or re-filled, this is another area that the refillers are cleaning up on. They charge for 9 litres but may only supply as little as 7 lts at times.

I think I will make a complaint and keep you all posted.

Antispectic, the way I understand it, the bottle exchange system
is a completely different system, to the one where they fill your
own bottle, often in a small, privately run business, with lower
costs, even the owner doing the work.

Here we have a gas bottle exchange, run by Origin energy. The place
which makes space available for the locked cage, bottles etc, just
makes a margin for their effort and providing the space. Origin
finance the bottles, their replacement over time, they send out
a truck with a bloke to refill the cages, all lots of time and
hand labour involved. That costs money today!

With service stations, it is well known that they make bugger all
on fuel, that is often the loss leader. Their profits come from
their convenience stores, where they have high margins. People
pay for the convenience.

I have no idea of the latest labour conditions in service stations,
but in many other industries, like food service, fruit picking
and even shearing, the Govt is trying to enforce double time
on weekends, etc. No doubt service stations will be on the list
too, as they work through the industries.

So my point is quite simple. If that is what you people want,
then dont' be amazed if business passes on these costs and you
pay for it as consumers.

Go to a restaurant on the weekend, they will slug you extra. Fair
enough.

Yabby:"The place
which makes space available for the locked cage, bottles etc, just
makes a margin for their effort and providing the space"

You're dead right and given the cost of a single bottle refill at the local camping place is about $23, I'd reckon that the margin the servos charge is about 50%.

The cost to origin of transport, etc is minimal, as they require only one or two trucks to service a vast area and their cost of refilling, given they must have a dedicated facility, should be considerably lower than my local shop, as should be the cost of their gas, since the local shop buys from them and sell it to me at retail for that $23.

About the only real additional on=going cost is the replacement/maintenance of the cylinders, which given an average life of (say) 5 years, probably nearer 10, works out at about $8 per year (at reatail cost for the cylinder, they pay jalf that at wholesale).

All-in-all, it's a rip-off from Origin and Boral. The servos love it because it's made gas a shop item with a fixed margin, and the dumb customers who use the product get screwed.

I'm in business myself, Yabby and I like to make a profit, but I can't stand profiteering.