Free Vacuums VS Pay Vacuums

[TEEBOX]

We are thinking about updating/renovating our existing self serve vacuums. We are currently using JE Adams individual vacuums. We offer a free vacuum token to customers who purchase a wash but everyone else who comes to use the vacs has to pay. We are thinking about purchasing the vacuum system canopy booms with a central vac and offering it as a free service. Has anyone made this type of change before? Does anyone currently offer free vacs at their wash?

If you use a token for your current customer, what do you charge for your vacuums?

 

[Car_Wash_Guy]

I'm 99% sure I'm going to try free vacuums. We're in an affluent area where I believe that abuse and negligence would be minimal. I'm thinking about using a push bottom to (somehow) pulse the timer with a relay timer somewhere wired in to interrupt the duration at say 10 minutes - hopefully eliminating the possibility of someone pushing the button 20 times and having the vac run for an hour or more.

or I was thinking of some kind of timer switch.

 

[I.B. Washincars]

CWG, there are some timers that will only accumulate 15 coins. I'm pretty sure older Paraplates were this way. On the 16th coin it would just reset. I never knew/remembered it until I started dispensing dollar coins. I had the same customer within a short period tell me that she put $4 in the vac and it didn't work. I tried it myself and discovered that it would quit after just a couple of seconds, probably when that 16th coin registered.

 

[MEP001]

There are inexpensive timers that you can set to run for a predetermined length for one button push, and are not accumulative. That would be cheaper and simpler than rigging a shutoff.

 

[Ptjanis95]

I did this 2 years ago. I have 16 monorail vacuums which I converted from $1.00 usage to free. Super cheap to do. lemme go take some pics and I'll post them in a few minutes. The traffic that it drives to my wash (100 ft tunnel and 7 bay SS) is insane. If I told you what I gave up in vac revenue to make these free, your jaw would hit the ground.

Yes, customers sometimes forget to turn the switch off. It definitely is a learning curve for them, but since we are on site for 12 hours a day, my employees usually notice and shut them off or remind the customer to do so if they forget.

I run a very similar operation 110' tunnel and 9 bay self serve. We have 20 vacuums on site and they bring in a good amount of money. Based off rough calculations we'd need to bring in an average of 22 extra customers per day just to break even. I guess it really varies from site to site but I'm having a tough time wrapping my head around it.

 

[hkim310]

If you use a token for your current customer, what do you charge for your vacuums?

We charge $1.00 for vac use currently. We are in the process of getting pricing for converting all 10 individual vacs over to central vac style. Will respond back with pricing and which direction we go.....

 

[Earl Weiss]

.... Based off rough calculations we'd need to bring in an average of 22 extra customers per day just to break even. .

Does the 22 customer figure just take into account revenue replacement, or does it also take into account additional free usage costs for maintenance , utilities and trash?

 

[Ptjanis95]

That figure is just standard revenue replacement, not including any other increased costs related to cleaning, maintenance, trash, etc.
That number is calculated as lost average vac income/ average ticket price .. just to keep calcs relatively simple for now. I'm sure if you figure in (wasted) electricity, extra trash, extra vacs breaking, extra hose and claws, etc... it would only get worse. Unless there is something I am missing, I am not sure it would work out for me in my situation. I would love to have it as an added value and leverage it as a marketing tool but financially I'm not sure about it.

 

[JMMUSTANG]

Based on the location of your vacuums, in front of bays or on the perimeter of the lot, I’m not sure if it will increase or decrease wash volume and therefor wash profits.
If in front of bays I can see customers driving up to use the vacs/trash for a longer period of time since they’re not on a timer blocking the use of the bay and then just leave.
At least if your vacs are on the perimeter they’re not blocking the bays.

 

[Jerry]

I run a very similar operation 110' tunnel and 9 bay self serve. We have 20 vacuums on site and they bring in a good amount of money. Based off rough calculations we'd need to bring in an average of 22 extra customers per day just to break even. I guess it really varies from site to site but I'm having a tough time wrapping my head around it.

PT- I'm gonna try to break it down for you. I don't know your exact setup, prices, revenue etc so just take this from someone who's done it before and it worked

First: Your self serve will get a nice bump. Maybe this can justify a small price increase in your self serve starting cost. $2.50 to $3.00 is a nice initial 20% increase in price. If you're at $3 already, maybe you can lower your starting time from 4 mins to 3:30(or something similar). I did not need to do either of these as I was at $3 for 4 mins but would not have been opposed to doing something like this to help justify making my vacs free.

Second: Do you sell anything else at your location? Detailing? Unlimited wash club for your tunnel? gas? c-store? Cigar shop(yes, I have one of these on premises)? All of these ancillary businesses will also benefit greatly from more foot traffic at your vacs.

Third: If you decide to try this, you need to be committed to it for at least 3 months for many reasons. the big reasons being that free vacs spread word of mouth. It takes a while for this to happen. Also, the average customer only washes a few times per year so you need to give them a chance to know a bout your new free product.

Upside math examples:

Lets say your vacs were bringing in $3000 a month which is $100 day at a $1.00 start price.
Lets say your tunnel per ticket average is $10 per wash.

at $100 a day, you only need 11 extra cars a day to wash thru your tunnel to basically break even. Do you think free vacuums will be enough of a draw that 11 extra customers will wash a day? seems like a no brainer to me. If you are lucky enough to drive this free vac business to a greater revenue source like a detail or monthly unlimited club, its a homerun.

my monthly club averages $25. My average monthly customer stays on for 9 months. If I sign up only 1extra person a day to this club, I've increased revenues $225( $25 avr X 9 months). My monthly club grew from over 1500 members since I made the vacs free. Coincidence? maybe, maybe not.


Downside Math: Lets use 3 months as a test to see if this works. At the $3000/month in vac revenues example above, you'd be out $9000 if you didnt increase revenues at all. Thats not too shabby if you had to chalk it up to an "advertising promotion." This is the worst case scenario where your car count doesnt even increase by 1 car, or 1 extra flex sale or 1 extra self serve cycle etc. Its basically impossible to "lose" the entire $9k. If you "only" see an uptick in 5 extra cars a day, well then your 3 month experiment only cost you $4500 which is really cheap for advertising.

For simplicity sake, I'm leaving out all other small costs(repairs, cleanouts, utility bills etc)

I started this free vac experiment at my wash during the last summer on the east coast and ran it thru dec 31st. I purposely did not start it in the spring when I knew my vacs get heavily used after the winter season. I took my slowest 3 months to mitigate the "damage" or loss if this didn't work.

Lastly, free vacs will make your paying customers loyal to your business. They won't vac for free then wash somewhere else(unless your wash is bad). That's also a huge benefit which is tough to quantify.

hope this helps.
PM me anytime and I'll shoot you my phone number if you need to discuss further

 

[Jerry]

Based on the location of your vacuums, in front of bays or on the perimeter of the lot, I’m not sure if it will increase or decrease wash volume and therefor wash profits.
If in front of bays I can see customers driving up to use the vacs/trash for a longer period of time since they’re not on a timer blocking the use of the bay and then just leave.
At least if your vacs are on the perimeter they’re not blocking the bays.

I was worried about this also as my 16 vacs sit directly in front or behind each bay. I have no peripheral vacs. This hasn't been an overwhelming problem at all for my situation.

Customers do come just to vacuum and spend nothing then leave. It's the nature of the beast. The overwhelming majority will use your facilities at some point. If they visit 9 times throughout the year to only vac for $9.00 each time, you've made 9 bucks. If they wash only once, and you make $10 in revenues. It's pretty good odds that 1 in 10 will wash. Thats why I gave the free vacs a try.

 

[hkim310]

If you use a token for your current customer, what do you charge for your vacuums?

We currently charge $1 for vacuums. I have contacted a number of different vacuum companies for estimates to switch to a central vac system with canopy booms and the prices have ranged on the low end of $60,000 to the high end of $90,000.