Heating Oil Supplier News

It was disclosed in the Daily Telegraph yesterday that DCC intends to sell the website Boilerjuice back to one of its original owners (and current Managing Director), Paul Ward. DCC is rumoured to have paid over £1 million for the site and this major U-turn comes just a few weeks after OFT criticisms and before a formal report into the heating oil market later this month.

The Telegraph quotes a DCC representative as saying “Boilerjuice was, and remains, an independent price comparison website, comparing our prices and those of hundreds of independent suppliers to offer buyers the best prices in their area. Unfortunately, this independence was questioned by some quarters of the media, albeit incorrectly, because of our ownership of the site. We have therefore sold Boilerjuice to its managing director, Paul Ward, and wish him continued success at giving consumers a truly independent means of finding the best prices.”

The phrase “hundreds of independent suppliers” seems a bit odd -there are only about 250 members of the Federation of Petroleum Suppliers. A large proportion of these are not independent, others have multiple memberships for the different regions they cover and a large number do not supply heating oil at all eg the oil tank companies that are members.

Boilerjuice has asked its customers to comment on the idea of moving towards a monthly payment scheme. In their blog they say:

“Gas and electricity suppliers do something similar; phone providers do it and now BoilerJuice could be doing it too… if you’d like us to. Basically, the plan would be for you to pay for your heating oil on a monthly payment basis so you build up a ‘bank’ of savings to go towards each heating oil purchase.”

This option could be appealing to customers who are wary of committing to a monthly payment scheme with a specific supplier. If Boilerjuice can sell it correctly, ie that the customer will always get the cheapest prevailing price when making an order, then it could even lure customers away from supplier payment schemes.

Consol Oils has an active and interesting blog on the company website. One of their bloggers, Kevin, has written a number of posts about BoilerJuice and here is an extract from the latest article:

“We are increasingly finding  that various online self styled, web based ”cheap” suppliers using third parties to effect deliveries on their behalf are muscling in on this sector with often extravagant claims that can be misleading to potential customers when closely scrutinsed.

One such claim made by Boilerjuice (BJ) was “the cheapest heating oil in Cornwall” which was guaranteed to grab everybody’s attention including mine. At the time in question without trying we were frequently up to 5ppl cheaper than BJ. Subsequently this claim was amended from “cheapest” to “cheaper” a subtle play on words to make the claim legally acceptable. However by what yardsick do BJ claim to be cheaper than any other operator, given that red herrings often abound in the oil distribution trade as part of the cut and thrust of genuine competition, there still appears to be a lack of genuine transparency designed to grab consumers attention by offering potentiallly misleading information.

Part of any online offer actually involves the physical delivery of the product, this is where the whole thing can so easily unravel if lack of resources dictates that service levels are not of the highest calibre. Boilerjuice in their latest blurb offer a standard 10 working day delivery (in reality 2 weeks) but then move on to trumpet that they now offer “EXPRESS” deliveries of  “5, 3 or 2 working days” they do not state on the blurb whether this involves a premium. Then there is the “EMERGENCY NEXT WORKING DAY DELIVERY FOR WHEN YOU NEED OIL EVEN FASTER” again no mention of a premium upfront. In fairness when the actual quote page comes up it does clearly state the premium levels, which in the case of an “EMERGENCY” delivery is 3ppl by normal size tanker plus, where applicable, a small tanker surcharge, by this stage an anxious customer who is shivering is already on the slippery slope, a couple of mouse clicks from commitment.”

To see the full article please go to http://www.consolsoils.co.uk/blog/