Vacuum Stations

[69Baracuda]

I currently have four vacuum stations. I am going to add the automatic, should I anticipate additional vacuum use which would require another station. Currently, the vacuum stations are highly utilized.
Thank you.

 

[chaz]

If your current vacs are highly used, and you have the space, I would add more vacs. I get $1 for four minutes and that's some of the easiest money and high profit margin on sight. Adding an auto may not mean more vac biz, as some customers choose not to get out if the car.

 

[MEP001]

You probably won't see a noticeable increase in vac use unless you offer a vac token with a wash purchase. 99% of our auto customers just go through and leave.

 

[jbmjbj]

I agree with chaz, if you are already highly utilizing your vacs, imagine how many people during the day just drive by because the vacs are full and unavailable, if your are going to be constructing an auto bay on site, you might as well throw another vac statoin in while things are tore up, thus killing two birds with one stone. The profit margin of a vacuum makes it well worth in almost any case, as long as it gets used. And the availability of another vac will attract more "impulse buyers" on their way off the lot after cleaning the exterior of their vehicle.

 

[robert roman]

If you made the decision to elevate the business by adding an in-bay to exploit a market opportunity, pay yourself for the effort.

For example, consider your environment in Montana. During summer, conditions are more suitable to wash at home.

During the rest of year, your wash becomes a much more practical solution for motorist’s problems – clean, shine and protect.

For this, you can command a premium, like charging $2.00 vacuum but make time five minutes to create value added.

As for in-bay, you might expect 20% to 25% of in-bay customers to use a vacuum if you provided a free use token at POS, maybe 10% without.

This serves several purposes; 1) free vacuum helps leverage in-bay price above average market price; 2) free vacuum helps turn some wand users to higher margin in-bay; 3) token represents $2.00 value – customer uses later or gives to someone else; etc.