Somewhere in a rural county this week, a moving truck pulled away from a house with a 500-gallon tank in the side yard and a gauge sitting low. The new owners do not know a single propane dealer by name. The water heater will remind them by Thursday.
What happens next takes less time than writing a delivery ticket.
BrightLocal, the local-search research firm, surveyed more than 1,200 US consumers in 2026 about their most recent search for a local business, and 84% said they had searched for one online in the previous three months. Most chose a business in under 30 minutes, BrightLocal found, and they chose from a handful of names rather than a full page of them.
So the propane sales cycle now runs its course in a driveway, on a phone, before the estimate and long before the tank-set appointment. Half an hour, and the field is set.
Originally published on Propane Insider.