Ice Bags

[dogwasher]

Anyone selling ice? If so how is it for business?

 

[Whale of a Wash]

I think that when someone thinks about ice, they naturally go to a convenience store, or grocery store. In our area ice is a poor seller, You can't sell ice to the eskimoes ,with our 5 months of winter. I would try more vending or add another function out in the bays to add some $$

 

[MEP001]

I know someone who has leased a small plot of his concrete to someone who put up an ice machine. There's no risk to him except he agreed to reimburse anyone who loses money in it, then he has the right to mark it out of order until they repair it.

 

[Jim H.]

I set up an ice machine at one of my washes and regret the decision very much. The machine that I bought has given trouble from day one. I did not check the machine out as carefully as I should have in the beginning. One of the mistakes that I made was averaging the number of bags sold over a week. With the machine that I bought, the theory is that you can sell 100 bags per day before you sell out. In reality, the demand Monday thru Thursday is about 10 bags per day; Friday and Saturday demand is 300 bags per day which cannot be met.

 

[dogwasher]

I set up an ice machine at one of my washes and regret the decision very much. The machine that I bought has given trouble from day one. I did not check the machine out as carefully as I should have in the beginning. One of the mistakes that I made was averaging the number of bags sold over a week. With the machine that I bought, the theory is that you can sell 100 bags per day before you sell out. In reality, the demand Monday thru Thursday is about 10 bags per day; Friday and Saturday demand is 300 bags per day which cannot be met.

You must have a good location for selling ice? If I could sell that many bags I would be buying an ice maker tonight! What is the profit on selling a bag of Water?

 

[Jim H.]

My location will not produce numbers like that every weekend. My intent was really just to say, as with car washhes you have an influx of sales. Most days, we can have one bay, but you cannot service your customers on weekends. Make sure you get a machine that can. I have friends in the ice business in nearby towns that get those numbers. I do not have a seperate meter for my water, but I have not noticed a significant increase in the water bill at the wash. The type of machine that I have is designed to maintain a temperature just above freezing to prevent ice bridging. The trade off is that you produce ice constantly, even if you are not selling ice. My power bill is usually 300.00 per month and a bag cost me .11, I sell a 16lb. bag for 1.75. I have been told that low income areas work well for this business. Traffic count in a busy intersection doesn't seem to work, of course having an ice machine that will not run for 48 hours without shutting itself off might have something to do with that.