Why dont Vacuum rates mirror self serve wash rates?

[Strava]

My vacuum cost $1.00 for 4 minutes & I was thinking about raising it. What are you vacuum prices? Would I be out of line asking $2.00?

 

[Randy]

My vac price is $1.75 for 3.5 minutes and I'm thinking about raising it to $2.00 soon. The Car wash on the other end of town is .75 for 5 minutes. My vac's are cleaned 3 times a week and always suck hard and they are very busy.

 

[Strava]

My vac price is $1.75 for 3.5 minutes and I'm thinking about raising it to $2.00 soon. The Car wash on the other end of town is .75 for 5 minutes. My vac's are cleaned 3 times a week and always suck hard and they are very busy.

Do you take CC's on you Vacs?

 

[Eric H]

I've been at $2 for 6 minutes since I got back from the ICA show inLas Vegas about 5-6 years ago. Not ONE SINGLE complaint and there is a expess with "Free" vacs up the road. My closest competitor was a $1.25 for 4 minutes until this spring. I like to think about all of the additional revenue I made over him for all that time.
I installed 7 new vacs with CC and bill acceptors at one location last fall and I have another 10 vacs on order for another site now. The convenience of not having to go to the change machine really reduces the customer's "time per visit". It opens up the space to another customer it spend $$ that would have been occupied as the customer walked to the change machine and back.

 

[splashngocornwall]

$2 for 5 minutes in Ontario Canada. Pretty much the norm around here.

 

[Randy]

Do you take CC's on you Vacs?

Nope

 

[DiamondWash]

$2 for 4 mins c.c and quarters

 

[soonermajic]

Anybody think it's really worthwhile to put Cryptopay on vacs? Seems like all swipes would be $2..

 

[DiamondWash]

I just installed c.c readers on my vacs and the response has been so-so but I have to get new signage stating the recent addition

 

[fastlx]

I get $2.00 for 4 minutes with cash/coin and $3.00 for 6 min with cc. The reason for this is so that once they swipe their card they can put it back up and just worry about cleaning the car. No complaints and been like this for years.

 

[GoBuckeyes]

We went from $1 / 3 minutes to $2 / 4 minutes to $2 / 3 minutes. No one ever really complained. When we went to the $2 start I would occasionally notice one or two people drive off and we would get some complaints that the vacuum didn't work because they only put in one token. Otherwise, it's been increased revenue / record vacuum revenue everytime.

 

[CarWashBoy]

My vacuum cost $1.00 for 4 minutes & I was thinking about raising it. What are you vacuum prices? Would I be out of line asking $2.00?

My Vac price is $3 - 3 minutes.. Cash/Credit/Debit.. No coins.. Cryptopay on all 9 and bill acceptors on all 9.. been that way for 2 years..
$1 for 4 minutes seems way to cheap.. just my 2 cents..

 

[DiamondWash]

My problem has been with our combination vac pricing/time one unit has fragrance and vacuum the other unit has shampoo and vacuum we can only charge one price for both functions whether they want to use them or not.

 

[Roz]

We added CC to all the vacs, they get used more and people appreciate the convenience. Cryptopay bundles the transactions if they use the SS bay too. It did result in a slight increase in our CC fee (as a % of rev).

 

[soonermajic]

My Vac price is $3 - 3 minutes.. Cash/Credit/Debit.. No coins.. Cryptopay on all 9 and bill acceptors on all 9.. been that way for 2 years..
$1 for 4 minutes seems way to cheap.. just my 2 cents..

Never heard of vac prices that high. So nearly all customers gotta spend around $5 to vac. Obviously you're not near a EE, tunnel etc...

 

[mac]

Always make it easier for your customers to spend their money.

 

[washnshine]

Funny thread. I’m old enough to remember when s.s. start up price was 25 cents - 4 minutes or so. The vacs were 25 cents also at that time- couldn’t go any cheaper for vacs or wash - meters didn’t take nickels or dimes. Since they were at the same price already, I guess that was the time when operators should have seized the opportunity to mirror any wash increase with a vac increase- but many of us strayed throughout the decades!

 

[CarWashBoy]

Never heard of vac prices that high. So nearly all customers gotta spend around $5 to vac. Obviously you're not near a EE, tunnel etc...

$3 to Vac.. and 3 blocks from EE Mega Wash

 

[tdlconceptsllc]

What blows my mind about the Whole carwash business is its so far behind on pricing and the Laundry industry charges and has kept up the pricing over the years way way better over the years and we are just now at the $2.50-$3.00 in bays the Laundry industry gets that for the smallest machine in the entire store and doesn't have to supply any chemicals think about that. But yet we have people giving away free vacs and trying to charge $3.00 in the bays just to compete against tunnels I ain't saying that's wrong but we try 5xs harder and spend way more money to draw customers. I think the SS bays should be $10.00 to start up to be current with the times in all seriousness and vacs should be $3-$5.00. A can soda is $3 a cup of coffee is $3+ the pricing in this industry has always lacked behind in that department sorry for the rant. I went to Hardees for breakfast the other week to try there new chicken biscuit combo. I bought 2 regular/small combos hash browns and tea it was $20. We are very behind with times I think. The Tunnels make up for it in extreme volume at such low price. Y'all are absolutely correct Vacs should should be high. We have not raised the prices on self serve over the decades .25 at a time and scared to death bc Joe the other operator is $1.00 it's impossible to get to the $10 start up where it needs to be the public's eyes could never understand that because we value our service so low for so long. sorry for the story but it's true

 

[WashInvestor]

What blows my mind about the Whole carwash business is its so far behind on pricing and the Laundry industry charges and has kept up the pricing over the years way way better over the years and we are just now at the $2.50-$3.00 in bays the Laundry industry gets that for the smallest machine in the entire store and doesn't have to supply any chemicals think about that. But yet we have people giving away free vacs and trying to charge $3.00 in the bays just to compete against tunnels I ain't saying that's wrong but we try 5xs harder and spend way more money to draw customers. I think the SS bays should be $10.00 to start up to be current with the times in all seriousness and vacs should be $3-$5.00. A can soda is $3 a cup of coffee is $3+ the pricing in this industry has always lacked behind in that department sorry for the rant. I went to Hardees for breakfast the other week to try there new chicken biscuit combo. I bought 2 regular/small combos hash browns and tea it was $20. We are very behind with times I think. The Tunnels make up for it in extreme volume at such low price. Y'all are absolutely correct Vacs should should be high. We have not raised the prices on self serve over the decades .25 at a time and scared to death bc Joe the other operator is $1.00 it's impossible to get to the $10 start up where it needs to be the public's eyes could never understand that because we value our service so low for so long. sorry for the story but it's true

I agree 100%. It costs $2.50 + tax for a 20oz coke now. EE and Full Service will have to aggressively start raising prices because of the massive labor inflation. That is the beauty of IBA/SS model - limited labor exposure, but the business can benefit from the overall industry raising prices overtime. It still boggles my mind how there are $5 washes out there. That price might have worked 10+ years ago, but with the way insurance, taxes, labor, etc. have risen, they must be losing money - just too lazy or afraid to raise prices.

A gallon of gas costs almost $5 in some areas now. If you were to ask the average Joe on the street how much it should cost for a car wash, I bet most would say at least $10.