In Ardmore, OK, Gas Station Financing: Station Purchases, Signage and Beer Caves

Inside the store, the equipment list is long and each piece has a model number: glass cooler doors on a walk-in, reach-in coolers, roller grills, a fountain machine with its ice maker, coffee brewers, a hot case and the point-of-sale terminals. Pieces like these can share one quote and go on one equipment note, and a partner can treat them as collateral.

Convenience stores without fuel have their own Census code, NAICS 445120. Under it, Carter County, OK counted 11 employer establishments in 2023 (CBP), with 67 employees and $978,000 of annual payroll; only 3 of the 11, or 27.3%, had fewer than five employees. By physical address, ZIP 73401 held 8 establishments under that code (ZBP 2023).

Buying a station through this site means buying the business: its equipment, its name and customer base, and the stock on the shelves and in the tanks on closing day. The land and the building are real estate, and loans for them are outside this site, so a business-only purchase pairs with a lease from the property owner. Underground tanks sit in the ground and stay with the real estate.

Illustration only, invented figures: a station business sells for $260,000 in this example, made up of $120,000 of equipment, $90,000 for the name and customer base, and $50,000 of fuel and store stock counted at closing. The buyer brings $26,000, and a term loan carries $234,000 over 84 months at an invented annual rate of 10.5%: $3,945.40 a month in this example, $331,413.60 across the full term.

A partner reviewing the purchase can ask for the seller's fuel and store sales records, the fuel supply agreement, and the lease, with enough years left on it to outlast the loan.

Whatever the station is buying, the paperwork a partner can request runs along these lines:

• Bank statements and card processing statements for the past several months
• Fuel gallons and inside sales, kept as separate lines
• The fuel supply agreement, with the years still left on it
• The property lease, or a statement that the owner holds the building outside the business
• The station's business tax returns plus a balance sheet dated this year
• The supplier quote for identifiable card readers, coolers or movable store fixtures; fixed canopy and store work are excluded

Identifiable card readers, coolers and cooler-lighting fixtures can have supplier quotes. Movable counters and freestanding lighting can be compared through a term loan; fixed canopy, walls, flooring and store work are excluded. Any landlord consent for supplier setup remains a lease question.

An in-bay automatic car wash is equipment with a serial number; the bay that houses it is part of the building. Coffee bars sit in between: brewers, grinders and the counter unit are equipment, fixed plumbing and electrical work are excluded. Snack and drink stock is neither, and inventory financing ties money to it.

Illustration only, invented figures: a station orders $18,000 of snacks and drinks in this example and sells through it in about 3 weeks; a line or an inventory facility carries the order and is paid down from the register as the stock sells.

A station owner in Carter County, OK works in a field split almost evenly by size: 19 of the county's 40 gasoline stations with paid staff in 2023, 47.5%, ran with fewer than five employees (CBP, NAICS 4471). Their 319 employees earned $8.4 million over the year, about $26,313 per employee by our arithmetic. ZIP 73401 held 30 gasoline stations by physical address (ZBP 2023).

Each kind of purchase points to a different product. The table below matches the common station purchases to the product pages on this site; in every row the funding partner decides whether it looks at the request and on what terms.

A merchant cash advance is not a loan: a provider buys a share of the station's future card sales and collects it from those sales. Separately, Nonemployer Statistics recorded 4 gasoline stations and fuel dealers with no paid employees in Carter County, OK in 2024 (NAICS 457). Other trades around Ardmore, OK are on the industries overview.