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Thoughts on raising prices to run off the bad customers?

Main Street Carwash

Main Street Carwash

Member
My 6 bay SS is the lowest price in town at 1.25 for 4:10. My vacs are 1.00 for 4 min. The place is very busy and grosses well but I am really tired of a-hole people that make huge messes and never hang hoses and brushes back up, etc. My vacs are outdated and require a lot of maintenance and don’t work that well unless I clean the filters every other day. I just bought a small fleet of Coleman combo vacs to replace them. Anyway, on to my question... has anyone had luck reducing bad customers by raising prices? There are 3 other car washes in town and all do ok but only one seems as busy as mine and he is 1.50 I believe for 4 min but not sure. There is another big 8 bay down the street that is my closest competition and he is 2.00 for 6 min and 1.00 vac but not sure of the time. He seems kind of busy but not killing it plus his equipment is always jacked up. The other is kind of a non factor because it is the farthest away but I think he is 1.75 or 2.00. He is the only SS with IBA’s and it seems the IBA”s are most of his business. I haven’t had a price increase in the bay in 20 years and raised the vacs to 1.00 from .75 about two years ago. My car wash does really well now so I am hesitant to change the formula but less wear and tear and running off the bad apples would be freakin awesome. I am kind of thinking about 1.75 for 4:05 and 1.25 for 4 min vacs. I try really hard to keep everything running well and I give my customers plenty of product and show. I frequently hear how my chemicals are better than the others. On a side note, I plan on adding Cryptopay and in bay dryers in the near future. Any thoughts on my thought process? Seem like a sound idea? Any input would be greatly appreciated.
 
Main Street Carwash said:
I haven’t had a price increase in the bay in 20 years
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Yikes.

In my experience & opinion, the cheapest wash in town attracts the cheapest customers (all other things being equal). The upgrades you mention should make a difference too, but IMO only if you raise prices to match.
To mitigate your concerns about price raising, I'd recommend a) raise your start price to $1.50 to at least match your lowest competitor. b) search & read all the threads here about raising prices, opinions are close to unanimous.

Main Street Carwash said:
... has anyone had luck reducing bad customers by raising prices?
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I think so -- I doubled my vac price from $1 to $2 specifically to try to reduce "bad trash customers." I definitely get less trash, and vac revenue actually went up a bit. Always hard to tell what other factors effect things though.
 
Yeah... and if you charge a fair price and give a great experience you’ll also make more money. In my area, I’m one of, if not the only $2 for 6 min vac guy. Most are $1 for 4 min. It’s been two years and just the occasional comment...then I explain you get more time ( even sticker says this) so u won’t be racing the clock and you will have plenty of time to vac. Every now and then a “customer” will be ready to vac and then leave...and that’s ok. My thought at the time....even if I lost 1/2 my vac biz...I’d still be ahead on wear and tear and cleanup up. My vac income has increased!

In my area most s/s are $2 for 4 min. With one guy at $1 for 1 min (he gets a lot of mess cause of his low start),I’m $3 for 4 min

I have bill and coin at all equipment c/c at auto and s/s.

Vacs will last forever if well maintained...perhaps your filter bags are too loose or worn out I’d they need so much attention.
 
“My vacs are outdated and require a lot of maintenance and don’t work that well unless I clean the filters every other day.”

“…place is very busy and grosses well but I am really tired of a-hole people that make huge messes and never hang hoses and brushes back up, etc…”

Well if that’s the case, why don’t you clean the place up everyday or twice a day?

No wonder you have bad customers.
 
The vacs are a poor design. Adams single door with a spring loaded bag under each motor (2). The bags get clogged almost immediately, even new ones. every other vac I have or have had were double door 4 bag or 3 bag (coleman) and never clog up the bags.
 
If you are going to raise vac prices only .25, you are better off keeping the price at $1.00 but lowering the time to 3:30. Customers won’t know you cut the time but they surely will notice a .25 increase as they’ll have to break another dollar bill into quarters. Cutting time makes your customers add an additional dollar to finish their car.

.25 won’t get rid of the bad apples, nor will cutting the time but at least you will make more money without the majority of your customers sensing a price increase.

Cutting time will increase your revenue more than the 25% which you will take in from your .25 price increase.
 
That does make sense because my vacs now do not have digital readouts and the ones I am about to install do so I'm pretty sure nobody is timing the current ones with a stopwatch or anything to be able to notice the difference. As far as the bay time goes (or vacs), I really don't like any increments less than .50. I really want to go to 2.00 in the bays but I think a .75 increase may be a bit much at one time. I will probably just go to 1.50 for 4 min for now.
 
Does your competition have CC readers and dryers? If not then you might be justified in raising it to the $2.00 start price after installing those.
 
We raised our SS prices about 50% (price per minute) back in March but we installed new LED6s, Cryptopay, custom bay door decals, and get this: foaming brushes. Yep we were about the last car wash out there that didn't have foaming brushes. The wash was built that way in 2003 but we just bought it last year. I'm sure nobody here will be surprised but the foaming brushes have already paid for themselves after doing some calculations from the hour meters.
 
A 25¢ increase will definitely run off some of the bad customers. I've raised prices at a lot of washes a lot of times over the years, and even a quarter price increase will **** off the ones just there to wash out their truck beds or knock off the worst of the mud.
 
I raised my prices on January 1 and never got one complaint, but we don't hang out at the car wash. We get there at 05:30 and are gone by 08:00. We are at $2.50 for 3.5 minutes. Some washes are $4.00 for 5 minutes.
 
1. Match next highest competitor on Price and bay time.
2. Add CC with $2.00 start and count up.
3. Put in a Superbay (or 2) with premium Pricing 20% higher than regular Bay. (Also serves as "Demand Pricing"
4. Put in Bill acceptors. I did half the bays as an experiment with an ad on Box from Etowah. Figured if box was attacked at least bay would still be usable with regular meter box. 3 Months later decided to o remaining bays.
 
Randy said:
I raised my prices on January 1 and never got one complaint, but we don't hang out at the car wash. We get there at 05:30 and are gone by 08:00. We are at $2.50 for 3.5 minutes. Some washes are $4.00 for 5 minutes.
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Thats where I'm at and where the wash has been at for at least 5 years ( I've owned it about 3).

My nearest competition is $1/2min. His place is older and has less curb appeal. He still does a good business.
 
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