Free vs. Paid Vacuums?

[I.B. Washincars]

I find self-serve operators that convert to controlled access such as pay-one-price where vacuums are free like express normally get an adequate return on investment.

SS that offers free vacuum with purchase at in-bay can led to increase in customer loyalty rate but only about 25 percent or so of in-bay users redeem the offer.

On other hand, I find SS wand-only sites that offer free vacuums to all customers as in trying to compete with an express usually can’t make up the difference in the loss of vacuum income because yield is low to begin with.

Although I have no experience, the above makes sense. The 25% redemption rate, IMO dictates a need for a button on the ACW that must be pressed to get the vac token, since so many tend to go unused.

I wonder what percentage of express washers actually vacuum?

 

[robert roman]

Guidelines for determining property and equipment requirements recommend calculating the number of free use vacuums by applying a factor of between 0.20 and 0.25 against conveyor length. 100' conveyor = 20 vacuum spaces

The customer satisfaction surveys I've been involved with suggest folks clean out the interior of their car, on average, about twice a month, and cleaning out doesn't always involve vacuuming.

 

[Car_Wash_Guy]

I find self-serve operators that convert to controlled access such as pay-one-price where vacuums are free like express normally get an adequate return on investment.

SS that offers free vacuum with purchase at in-bay can led to increase in customer loyalty rate but only about 25 percent or so of in-bay users redeem the offer.

On other hand, I find SS wand-only sites that offer free vacuums to all customers as in trying to compete with an express usually can’t make up the difference in the loss of vacuum income because yield is low to begin with.

Thanks for providing the info based on your experiences.

What about SS/IBA sites? Have any experiences with them(free vacs)?

 

[soapy]

25% seems to be a accurate use of vacs on those people who buy a automatic wash. I have estimated that 1/2 of the people never even pick up their token coin. I have installed lights on several of my vacs using the supplied voltage to the vacs. I use LED flood lights both with motion sensors and also with coin activation. IN areas where I need more light and don't have a extra circuit I have added as many as 4 of the LED flood lights to the vac circuit without overloading the 20 amp circuit.

 

[2Biz]

Why would a LED bring more nighttime traffic? Is your wash not lit currently at night?

Not to venture too far from the original question....But I think this is relevant when trying to get a larger customer base and added revenue when it comes to vacs.

To answer your question, yes my wash is lit. But could be more economical and better. I helped lead the way for Compact Fluorescent bulb retrofits 7-8 years ago that many operators saved hundreds a month by stripping out the old High Energy Mercury Vapor or Metal Halide bulbs...But now with LED's at an all time low affordable price, its time to take the CFL's out and go a step further.

Currently I have 30w LED bulbs in in each of my vac canopy's. They are bright, but not as bright as I would like. I think they work extremely well to light up the vac area and for security, but my thoughts to get more night-time vac use would be to have additional lights come on when the vac is running. Kind of like giving a bonus with night-time use. I'm planning on doing the same with the bays, only using a PLC to control the lighting.

Below is a picture of my current vac canopy fixture...And a link to the 80w rotatable LED fixture that will attach to the side of the canopy for the additional lighting. There is plenty of room in the canopy to house the delay off relay and another relay attached to the vac timer/mercury relay. The additional cube relay is more robust and will energize each time the vac is used day and night. But the output of the cube relay will only energize the delay off relay when the lighting circuit turns on. The canopy light will still come on as usual and stay lit all night. To start I think I'll set the delay off relay to 3 minutes...We have to remember how cheap it is to operate LED's...

The 80w fixture:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B076617CL8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Making this change along with changing to the interactive LED's in the bays will save about another $50 a month. But hoping the "WOW" factor will bring in more night-time use when its smoking hot outside this summer...If it ever gets here. Actually it was snowing in Southern Ohio this evening when I snapped this picture...April 16th! Believe it or not, it was 83° here just 3 days ago!

 

[Earl Weiss]

That specs out at a lot of lumens for 80W and it is a good price. Let us know how it works out for you. The 80w fixture:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[Earl Weiss]

I retrofitted some 1000 Watt lot lights with the Corn Cobs - Not happy even though they spec'd out as replacements. Changed fixtures on others - Much Better.

 

[tdlconceptsllc]

Back to the original thread lol this free vs paid vacs has affected me somewhat I am in a small town and my competition has recently renovated his 4/2 last summer and added free vacs from 7am-7pm to anyone that pulls onto his lot paying customer or not to have the competition edge over me. I don't want to say to much info about it online. I see a lot of people pull up vacuum and leave now his theory is 1 out of 10 people doing that someone will pay and it has been the talk of my little town nothing about anything else on site but that. I am $1.50 on vacs and $2 for CC and it has effected my vacuums some being I have the older wash. I am trying to come up with a way to compete thinking of giving a free token with purchase of any auto wash and can you that for $1.00 credit towards nextime or free vacuum. I could be wasting my money and effort but it may work out. My main goal is to hold on to my current auto customers and keep them happy on my side of town and increase my car count open to ideas and inputs since we are on this thread.thanks

 

[tdlconceptsllc]

and soapy I tried PM you to ask some more questions about your setup but it says its full thank you sir

 

[robert roman]

Where are we – this free vs paid vacs has affected me somewhat

Where do we want to go – my goal is to hold on to my current auto customers and increase my car count

How do we get there - ?

Based on the above, first order is to quantify what “somewhat” is. Let’s assume year-to-year loss of $10,000 sales revenues net site.

Holding on to position is stabilization. Usually the owner wants to maintain current position (stop loss) without making many changes to do so.

You’ve suggested free vacuums with purchase of in-bay service.

If average price is $8.00 and per unit variable cost is $1.50, you would need to wash an additional 1,538 cars a year to stabilize the business ($10,000 / $8.00 - $1.50).

Are 1,538 possible? If not, would you be happy with less? And so forth.

Increasing car count is growth. Growth aims at gaining market share by being different or offering new products/services or expanding.

Growth means you want the $10,000 plus more than your fair share. LOL

Growth would require new products, greater capacities, modern technology, etc. and associated capital investment.

Hope this helps.

 

[soapy]

TDL try now I deleted all my old inbox messages

 

[MEP001]

Back to the original thread lol this free vs paid vacs has affected me somewhat I am in a small town and my competition has recently renovated his 4/2 last summer and added free vacs from 7am-7pm to anyone that pulls onto his lot paying customer or not to have the competition edge over me. I don't want to say to much info about it online. I see a lot of people pull up vacuum and leave now his theory is 1 out of 10 people doing that someone will pay and it has been the talk of my little town nothing about anything else on site but that. I am $1.50 on vacs and $2 for CC and it has effected my vacuums some being I have the older wash. I am trying to come up with a way to compete thinking of giving a free token with purchase of any auto wash and can you that for $1.00 credit towards nextime or free vacuum. I could be wasting my money and effort but it may work out. My main goal is to hold on to my current auto customers and keep them happy on my side of town and increase my car count open to ideas and inputs since we are on this thread.thanks

We held out against an EE nearby with free vacs. Income went down a lot at first, I just kept everything maintained as usual and after about a year it was almost back to where it was. Eventually I kept hearing from customers that the EE didn't maintain the area, the hoses were filthy and taped, people didn't hang them up so there was no suction, and they didn't have vending or a sink, so we won them back.

 

[Jerry]

MEP,

Seems you got lucky that the EE wasn't maintaining their location. I don't believe waiting for an owner to become a bad operator is a winning strategy in the long term.

 

[tdlconceptsllc]

MEP,

Seems you got lucky that the EE wasn't maintaining their location. I don't believe waiting for an owner to become a bad operator is a winning strategy in the long term.

Yes me and him both run a first class operation not your typical operators by no means. This will never happen in my case

 

[MEP001]

MEP,

Seems you got lucky that the EE wasn't maintaining their location. I don't believe waiting for an owner to become a bad operator is a winning strategy in the long term.

This location was part of a convenience store and had no more than two employees at any one time. IMO it was inevitable that it would become poorly maintained.