How Have Express Washes' Free Vacuums Strategy Affected You / Changed Your Biz Model?

[JMMUSTANG]

At one of my locations I changed my full service wash to an express wash with free vacuums several years ago.
It is next to my self service wash.
My self service lost 50-60 % of business.
Vacuum revenue down 60-70%.
I have to say I really like the idea of offering free tokens for vacs when the customer purchases a ss/iba wash.
One of my concerns is the cost of equipment and converting my vacs to accept tokens.
Soapy love the pics. thanks.

 

[robert roman]

“…..free vacs….resulted in almost a 20 percent increase…. That RR is not sucking away profits. Seems RR always condemns any idea the SS AND IBA industry tries.”

To the contrary, my contributions and writings over the last several years on self-service have been focused on improvement and self-help.

I have always been a proponent of free vacuum as long as it can be done properly.

The issue with offering free vacuum at self-service is it just isn’t enough.

20 percent increase in what? Was this 20 percent increase for a growing or mature business or one with declining sales?

For example, if the wash had lost 40 market value, and you increase sales by 20 percent, you are still behind the 8-ball.

What is benefit/cost and ROI of free vacuum where cost equal loss of vacuum revenue (opportunity cost) and improvements on land (accounting cost)?

“……I changed my full service wash to an express….with free vacuums…. My self service lost 50-60 % of business. Vacuum revenue down 60-70%.”

Consider cause and effect. Traffic count doesn’t make carwash count fluctuate, people do.

Likewise, express doesn’t cause self-service vacuum revenue to drop, wand customers do.

Quite frankly, giving away vacuum to wand customers at this point wouldn’t make any sense.

Consider self-service that wants to offer unlimited.

The drop average revenue per car (net site sales) from implementing program is often $2.50 or more. Express format has excess capacity to make this up in volume, in-bay does not.

Arguably, this suggests an objective strategy and tactics and not poking at the threat with a stick. The point I was trying to make.

 

[robert roman]

One proof of my point of view is to compare assets.

Difference in cost of express and self-service is $105 per SF building ($520 - $415).

About half of the difference or $50 is equipment cost per SF building ($165 - $115).

The remaining difference is real estate expenses.

Cost of real estate usually relates to quality of retail market. So, one half of express equation can be attributed to size, sustainability and potential value of market.

The other half can be attributed to difference in abilities and capacities of the plants.

So to compete with express, self-service owners would need to first solve the location (market) problem and invest in the business.

The analysis suggests a rate of at least $50 per SF building in equipment (plant).

 

[kempape]

i modified a shurvend vendor to vend
a free vending product with purchase of touchless wash .
( sometimes we vend token-notes that discount $1.00 future wash purchase) .
the vendor is located just in front of the autocashier. .... customers like it!
as far as i know this is the only such setup on USA.
jim at shurvend was great in helping get this setup .

 

[kempape]

i think that jim has a short video clip
of this setup if anyone interested .
our collectoons have increased since
initiated this setup ... our return on token- notes is above 25 percent .

 

[Uncle Sam]

Kemp's set up!!!

Kempape and all,

I did help Kemp set up his idea to give free vending products to his customers that bought an IBA wash. What I did was to sell him an free standing 18-selection machine that he installed on a pedestal between the auto-cashier and the entrance to the IBA so the drop box portion of the vendor was at window height of the car. I also set up the programming so that each column vended in sequence so the customer might get any product from a paper towel to a fragrance tree to a token-note depending what the operator places in the column. This added a "lottery" element to the free vend triggered by the auto cashier. As noted above nothing sells better than "free". He set up two IBAs this way and, as he states, it works for him by increasing his wash volume. That is the name of the game for all self serve operations.

To add more info to this post, Kemp added a delivery mechanism in place of the drop box so that any vended product slides out for easy access by the customer. I am in the design stage right now to take the drop box out of a vendor and add a steel chute to deliver the vended product to the customer when the vend sequence is triggered. A $1-$1.25 value vending product or token-note would seem to compete very well with the value of a "free vacuum" promoted by the Express Exterior wash model.


Uncle Sam

 

[soapy]

At a couple of my locations I have the shurevend vendors setup to accept my tokens. So IBA can also redeem their bonus token for any vend product, vacuum, $1 off next wash etc. I just had to have coin acceptor in shurevend setup to recognize token.

 

[Uncle Sam]

Kemp's Images

 

[Uncle Sam]

Pat,

Looks like you did it!!! Now tell us how you did it.

Uncle Sam

 

[I.B. Washincars]

I copied the "direct" link from photobucket, then used the "insert image" button from the forum which bracketed it with the IMG tags. I think maybe we could just use the IMG link from photobucket and not use the button on the forum and get the same result, but the first way I tried worked so I didn't go any farther.

 

[newtunnel]

Why not do express with self serve and free vacs. That's what I am doing now at my express. Killing the guy with self serve and pay vacs. Also we let them use our micro fiber towels and windex. If I every build the next location it will have 4 self serve bays attached too the building.