How has inflation affected your business?

[edredtop]

I'm curious as to how fellow owners are coping with our current circumstances;
There's a lot of components to this problem and thought it would be cool to hear from you all, so consider this topic a buffet, pick one or go for it all and pig out. ;-)

* are you seeing a reduction in gross or net income due to inflationary forces?
* are you seeing less customers due to higher gas prices?
* have you had to join the 'party' and raise your prices, or are you getting creative in other ways?
* are you apologetic for raising prices by giving an explanation with a sign or verbally when talking to a customer or how do you discuss it, if at all?
* does it get political with your customers?

In the past year or so, we have had to raise prices AND get creative, sometimes in ways we hadn't considered before.

Some of the more obvious ways (to us as owners) is to raise prices by:
Increasing start prices, lowering run times, switching nozzle tips from larger to smaller, 2507 to a 1505 for example (remembering to adjust pressure ), use a more diluted soap mixture and so on... but would you do these things if it means losing the quality you've established?
Or do you just go for the price increase?

For us we've gone from advertising a $1 price point at the street, to advertising services with no mention of price. Our start price changed in February and has gone from $1/ 2min. to $2/3min.
$3, $4, and $5 start prices are in the very near future for us.
Additionally, because we use a one dollar token, we now charge $3 for a 4 oz. AA Tire foam, and $3 for 2 little trees (did you know you can double stack them in the Laurel 5 column?). Yep, more product in the vendor is more risk if broken into but...

 

[OurTown]

We raised the self serve prices a few months ago. Looking ahead now I'm not sure we raised it enough. Overall revenue is up year to date vs last year and that's with a really bad rainy month. (about mid March through mid April) At this point we are not interested in lowering the quality of anything. We have a highly rated wash and don't want to mess that up. If things get really stupid and we need to go into "survival mode" then of course we will look at whatever it takes to keep it going.

 

[Tom Thumb]

I'm curious as to how fellow owners are coping with our current circumstances;
There's a lot of components to this problem and thought it would be cool to hear from you all, so consider this topic a buffet, pick one or go for it all and pig out. ;-)

* are you seeing a reduction in gross or net income due to inflationary forces?
* are you seeing less customers due to higher gas prices?
* have you had to join the 'party' and raise your prices, or are you getting creative in other ways?
* are you apologetic for raising prices by giving an explanation with a sign or verbally when talking to a customer or how do you discuss it, if at all?
* does it get political with your customers?

In the past year or so, we have had to raise prices AND get creative, sometimes in ways we hadn't considered before.

Some of the more obvious ways (to us as owners) is to raise prices by:
Increasing start prices, lowering run times, switching nozzle tips from larger to smaller, 2507 to a 1505 for example (remembering to adjust pressure ), use a more diluted soap mixture and so on... but would you do these things if it means losing the quality you've established?
Or do you just go for the price increase?

For us we've gone from advertising a $1 price point at the street, to advertising services with no mention of price. Our start price changed in February and has gone from $1/ 2min. to $2/3min.
$3, $4, and $5 start prices are in the very near future for us.
Additionally, because we use a one dollar token, we now charge $3 for a 4 oz. AA Tire foam, and $3 for 2 little trees (did you know you can double stack them in the Laurel 5 column?). Yep, more product in the vendor is more risk if broken into but...

I'm curious as to how fellow owners are coping with our current circumstances;
There's a lot of components to this problem and thought it would be cool to hear from you all, so consider this topic a buffet, pick one or go for it all and pig out. ;-)

* are you seeing a reduction in gross or net income due to inflationary forces?
* are you seeing less customers due to higher gas prices?
* have you had to join the 'party' and raise your prices, or are you getting creative in other ways?
* are you apologetic for raising prices by giving an explanation with a sign or verbally when talking to a customer or how do you discuss it, if at all?
* does it get political with your customers?

In the past year or so, we have had to raise prices AND get creative, sometimes in ways we hadn't considered before.

Some of the more obvious ways (to us as owners) is to raise prices by:
Increasing start prices, lowering run times, switching nozzle tips from larger to smaller, 2507 to a 1505 for example (remembering to adjust pressure ), use a more diluted soap mixture and so on... but would you do these things if it means losing the quality you've established?
Or do you just go for the price increase?

For us we've gone from advertising a $1 price point at the street, to advertising services with no mention of price. Our start price changed in February and has gone from $1/ 2min. to $2/3min.
$3, $4, and $5 start prices are in the very near future for us.
Additionally, because we use a one dollar token, we now charge $3 for a 4 oz. AA Tire foam, and $3 for 2 little trees (did you know you can double stack them in the Laurel 5 column?). Yep, more product in the vendor is more risk if broken into but...

the problems at our wash all appear to be political created.