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Unlimited washing for self serve?

Etowah
Why go to all this work if you are only going to offer this to fleet accounts?
Do you really have enough electricians etc that will pay 4-6x a month to wash unlimited? The average unlimited tunnel customer only washes 3x/month so it seems hard pressed that the majority of fleet customers would pay anything more than that(3x) for self serve.

I like your ingenuity in looking for a workaround but the way you are trying to do this sounds like a lot of back end administrative work for a small reward.
How do you handle declined credit cards?
How do you handle insufficient debit card funds and alert the customer that you haven't received payment?
 
Jerry said:
Why go to all this work if you are only going to offer this to fleet accounts?
Do you really have enough electricians etc that will pay 4-6x a month to wash unlimited? The average unlimited tunnel customer only washes 3x/month so it seems hard pressed that the majority of fleet customers would pay anything more than that(3x) for self serve.

I like your ingenuity in looking for a workaround but the way you are trying to do this sounds like a lot of back end administrative work for a small reward.
How do you handle declined credit cards?
How do you handle insufficient debit card funds and alert the customer that you haven't received payment?
Click to expand...

We run a wash in a small market, so the backend probably wouldnt be too restrictive FOR US. With that being said i understand it wouldnt work for everybody.

i want to restrict it to fleets because they are who i am not seeing here currently and they are vehicles that dont fit into automatics or tunnels. Guys with roof racks and ladders and box trucks etc. plus i have to consider that there will be abuse if they start "sharing" the cards amongst trucks and friends, by opening it to regular customers i risk that abuse really hurting, by keeping it fleet only i limit the potential abuse.

I want to add revenue not steal what i already have. If it is succsefull enough i probably could expand it. I also use the $25 price point off the top of my head without running the numbers yet. Maybe the price is 10/15 per month. No one around here offers free vacs so i dont have to compete with that but i have a lot of customers who may be interested in a 10-15 per month self serve and vac all you want club. I am still in the early stages of trying to figure it all out. Hence why i am considering running a several month test with cryptopays attendent cards with 1 or 2 companies to see how it goes. Even if i only get 20 trucks at $15 per month i would add $4000 per year revenue. That would be a test though to see if it could be expanded. I guess i figure in my head that fleets would be easier to scare away from abusing the cards use. I could just tell them we cross check the cameras to card usage to make sure its not being abused. Like i said we are real small market here, 6000 people in town, but a huge vacation population.
 
I used the original Wash Card system with rfid. Tags the size of a quarter placed on the windshield. I made my own rfid. Reader that attaches to my ACWS . I am using this setup for unlimited auto washes but it could easily be used for SS. Bays. I picked up some of these for $100 each off the forum. Each one controls 2 SS. Bays or 1 SS. AND 1 AUTO bay. You could do 2 SS. Bays with readers and 100 tags for under $1000.
 
soapy said:
I used the original Wash Card system with rfid. Tags the size of a quarter placed on the windshield. I made my own rfid. Reader that attaches to my ACWS . I am using this setup for unlimited auto washes but it could easily be used for SS. Bays. I picked up some of these for $100 each off the forum. Each one controls 2 SS. Bays or 1 SS. AND 1 AUTO bay. You could do 2 SS. Bays with readers and 100 tags for under $1000.
Click to expand...

Can you give me more info on this set up? Maybe a link to the equipment? It sounds like a better option. We use gin san equipment and dilling harris for our self serve bays.
 
Just out of curiosity, why would you want to offer unlimited washing at a SS for 10 or 15 bucks a month? Is it on the assumption that people may use the wash less than the cost of the plan would give them in a pay per wash situation? Would you require a yearly subscription or monthly and cancel at any time? I am sure that every one of my customers that are regular customers and therefore would be interested in such a plan, would definitely be getting the better end of that deal by far. A lot of them spend at least half that every visit and these are people I see at least once a week and quite a few more often than that. Maybe my location, being right by the ocean and having car washing weather pretty much year round, is why people wash frequently. Even at $25 a month, I think it would be a wash at best. (no pun intended) I have a few people that wash their car just about every day.
 
Another way you might be able to do unlimited SS. Wash is to use a access control setup like they use for security into businesses. Door access using rfid tags is popular and can be easily converted over to activate a self service bay.
 
Main Street Carwash said:
Just out of curiosity, why would you want to offer unlimited washing at a SS for 10 or 15 bucks a month? Is it on the assumption that people may use the wash less than the cost of the plan would give them in a pay per wash situation? Would you require a yearly subscription or monthly and cancel at any time? I am sure that every one of my customers that are regular customers and therefore would be interested in such a plan, would definitely be getting the better end of that deal by far. A lot of them spend at least half that every visit and these are people I see at least once a week and quite a few more often than that. Maybe my location, being right by the ocean and having car washing weather pretty much year round, is why people wash frequently. Even at $25 a month, I think it would be a wash at best. (no pun intended) I have a few people that wash their car just about every day.
Click to expand...

You need to price your plan in such a way that gives value to the average consumer. If you decide to price your club at $25 or more for a self serve wash that starts at $3.00, the only people that will see the value in it, are the few that wash 3 times a week. You will never maximize your club revenue bc only a dozen or so people will join.

A lower price attracts more members and more members equals much more guaranteed revenues without increasing usage dramatically. At $15/month, each customer is now worth $180 a year to you. If your average self serve customer spends $5 per wash, do you really think that average customer is washing 30+ times a year?
 
I typed a long response and accidentally deleted it. Doh! But to summarize, yes my average customer washes more than 30 times a year pretty easy. Giving the customer value in terms of more for less has to come from somewhere.(the bottom line) I do not believe that someone who is spending less to wash their car in a pay as you go situation would decide to join an unlimited washing club to spend more money and not wash more. Like more than the cost of membership if they were paying as they went. Where I am the weather is pretty conducive to washing year round so I am sure that probably makes a big difference. I don't know for sure though as many state on here that snow and slush and such drives business in the colder climates.
 
There’s a company called MoviePass which lets you watch unlimited theater movies for a monthly fee. The membership price was $50. They had 20000 members and those members watched on average 3.5 movies a month. They recently dropped their prices to $9.95 per month and now they have 1.5 million members. Average usage dropped to 1.1 movies a month. People will pay for things they don’t use.

72% of my unlimited club members wash 2 or fewer times per month in my tunnel. My club price is 2x of my pay as you go price.


The general public doesn’t change their habits dramatically when joining an all you can type club. You don’t watch more tv bc your cable bill is fixed each month nor do you make more phone calls when your cell plan is unlimited. The car washing customer is no different as he’ll wash when his car is dirty, not everyday bc he needs to ‘get his moneys worth.’
 
I also would not upgrade to a $50 a month unlimited cell phone plan if I already had a $20 plan with 100 min and that's all I used. As for the MoviePass analogy, no one carwash would ever be able to capture such a wide audience because it is geographically limited. I think an unlimited wash club makes more sense in a tunnel or a more upscale operation than a SS. Its just a different demographic that uses each type for the most part. Also, what is your average use per member of your unlimited club? You already gave numbers that indicate 28% of your members are making you less money because they wash more than 2x month and price is 2x pay as you go price. The other 78% either break even or make you some money. What is the average? The thing is that your gains are limited by the amount of people that don't wash 2x month. At most you can gain only the cost of 2 washes per member but you can lose unlimited on that 28% of your members. Its kind of like options trading. I'm sure you make some money doing the club or at least its worth it for the convenience and guaranteed monthly income or you would not be doing it, right? I just don't see the SS market having any great benefits here. Just my 2 cents. If someone implements such a thing, I would be very interested to see how it works out.
 
The point of the MoviePass analogy wasn’t to presume that a local car wash could gather 1.5 million members. The point was that when the price drops to attract the masses, usage also drops accordingly. People all of a sudden don’t go to 25 movies a month just bc the price is $10. Same with car washing.

It also doesn’t matter what you or I would buy. It matters what the average customer will do. If you price any club to high, only the most frequent washers will take advantage of it. In turn, you won’t sell many memberships bc the average customer doesn’t see value in a high price. Find the sweet spot in price and the infrequent washers find great value in it, even if they don’t use it as often.

My overall average is 3 washes a month per member. I wish it was higher so no one would be tempted to cancel.

28% of my members use it 3x or more. Those customers are still worth $25 a month for me as is the customer that uses it once a month.

The incremental cost of washing more cars each day is tiny. If you wash 100 cars a day, how much does it cost you to wash 5 more? Almost nothing besides water and chemicals as every other cost is already fixed. You don’t lose on the 28% who wash more frequently, the still pay you exponentially more per year than your average pay as you go customer.

Your pay as you go average is not the end all be all number you’ve been used to. Bringing in more revenue should be way more important.
The economics should work in the SS as they do inthe tunnel.
 
Bringing more revenue as in more number of customers you mean? I can understand that. I guess I am fortunate that I capture the majority of the market share in my city for SS. I really am thinking about raising prices to tamp down the volume a little but offset that with the price increase revenue wise. (Money, not volume) I think it would get rid of the most undesirable customers that are just looking for the cheapest place anyway. But it is a slippery slope to do such a thing. On numbers alone, your wash club makes you less money off of the members vs pay as you go, (3 for the price of 2) but I totally understand doing such a thing to generate more volume. I also agree that the cost to you for a few more washes is minimal in comparison to the less per car but more overall profit due to increased volume. At my established carwash, customer volume is a problem I do not have. Now I just revived a dead wash and maybe if it doesn't get the volume I want then maybe I would try such a thing, but less than 2 months open and the first being the worst time for washing all year, it looks pretty good. I hope to buy more dead carwashes and revive them. So far it has given me a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. Your model intrigues me for a SS. At some point, I may try it myself if I need to generate volume.
 
Our wash is gated. You pay $8 and all services are included - no extra charge. We attend about 40 hrs week, more when busy. We have no competition in this segment (WAUW). Check our website - adrianimagecenter.com
 
thanks Greg. I'll look into this. Apps are great for our industry. I'm currently working with a company who will be developing the hardware that will work for unlimited SS. Hope to have a solution in less than 2-3 months.
 
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