Plateau

[caliwashes]

Hi everyone, I recently took over a self-serve back in April. It’s a four bay and was doing very poorly about 1200 bucks a week. I got it up to the point where we’re doing about three grand a week. Everything is newly remodeled, paint, equipment, etc. However, I feel like we are plateauing at $12-$13,000 a month. Our price is two dollars to start for four minutes located in Southern California. There is some competition in the area. What are your thoughts on increasing revenue and volume. I have thought about lowering the price to a dollar to start for one minute and 20 seconds. Other than that everything is cleaned twice a day there’s no issue with equipment failure so I feel like I don’t know what more I can do. I feel like two dollars is already so low but all the competition charges two dollars. I did try doing 2.50 and even three dollars and it affected my revenue. Any recommendations are appreciated thank you.

 

[Eric H]

Can you add any more options? Maybe Air Dryers.
Are you having a seasonal slowdown? Here in the Northeast I find that my slowest months are September until the snow starts. People here get very busy personal lives during the fall. Kids back to school, sports practice, football season, and all of the fall activities for apple picking and raking leaves. I find that people just don’t have the time to wash their car.

 

[caliwashes]

I’ve got all the bells and whistles. Air dryers, triple foam too.

 

[Keno]

$2 is too low of a start especially in socal where your costs are probably extremely high.

Is your wash better than the competition or do they have a similar offering and level of up keep?

 

[caliwashes]

Competition was built from ground up and are considered one of the best locations in the area. He’s got full time staff at his site and does $40-$50K a month out of his self serve bays. Maybe I’m just topped out at where I am because I can’t compete with the other guy.

 

[Rfreeman]

Assuming you have credit cards since you said it has all the bells and whistles, I would think to start notching down the time then. You said you tried raising the start price to some negative feedback, so lower the time given to see what the clients reaction is. I started doing both increasing start time and lowering time last year since cost have gone up and so far so good.

Your situation is unique in that you have a 4 bay so there is only so much you can get through on a 4 bay. Additionally, sound like you have stiff competition with a newer well run location that is direct (self serve) competition vs. say a tunnel.

 

[Blanco]

I’ve got all the bells and whistles. Air dryers, triple foam too.

Do you have the air dryers installed? Wasn't it last week your looking for quotes?

 

[Keno]

Competition was built from ground up and are considered one of the best locations in the area. He’s got full time staff at his site and does $40-$50K a month out of his self serve bays. Maybe I’m just topped out at where I am because I can’t compete with the other guy.

Unfortunately, Sounds like he will be able to dictate the pricing in your area if his wash is newer and better

 

[caliwashes]

Do you have the air dryers installed? Wasn't it last week your looking for quotes?

Yes. Air dryers are for another site.

 

[Eric H]

You can do the math and figure out your break even for a price increase.
100 wash cycles at $2 = $100 gross income
80 washes at $2.5 = $100 gross income (a 20% reduction)

Do you think you’ll lose 20% of your customers with a 50 cent increase? I suspect you’ll lose 5%. 95 x $2.50 = $237.5.

The 5% you lose will probably be 4% of your worst customers (bucket washers etc) and 1% of price driven customers.

You won’t increase net by keeping prices the same as they’ve always been.

 

[Earl Weiss]

Reported Industry averages were about $2000 / Mo / SS Bay. Seems you are at 150% of that. How many SS Bays does the competition have for $40-$50k / Mo.?

 

[Greg Pack]

Congrats on what sounds like a great improvement!

What's the pricing model of your competition? Aside from attendants, What else could be done at your wash to match his performance? I'd be priced similarly.

 

[Waxman]

Maybe take a look at your chemical costs to save $. I switched to mixing my own powdered soap for hp soap and foamy brush and saved alot over the years.