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Where are you and what are your prices?

I think that generally speaking car wash prices are too low. I see a lot of that evidenced here in this survey.

My car wash is in a middle to lower income region of Massachusetts. I also offer car detailing. We have gone up considerably on our prices in the last 7 to 10 years. I realized I was working far too hard and never seemed to get ahead. Our overhead is very reasonable so a price increase was implemented. People do complain about the detailing prices and for some reason they think they can negotiate. However I have a good manager in place and I delegate customer service in the detail department to him. I tend to get insulted when people try to "talk me down" so I removed myself from that part of the business.

When I had Autowash Maintenance install my new razor a few years ago I ran Numbers and contemplated pricing for quite some time. I finally settled on a nice high price and while some customers do protest it's actually not that many and you would be surprised at my percentages for the top package. I also raised my start up price in the self serves and vacs.

Business is much more enjoyable when there is a bit of extra money to make improvements etc. that's why were here!
 
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very nice waxman! i am thinking about making the jump to $20 but a little nervous even though my $18 is best seller
 
jack954 said:
very nice waxman! i am thinking about making the jump to $20 but a little nervous even though my $18 is best seller
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Customers are already putting in the $20 bill anyway so the psychology of your price is not going to change much in my opinion. It's even less of a difference to the customer when they pay with credit.
 
Looking for input on switching from count down to count up. Thinking of setting my count up limit to $20
 
I installed new coin boxes the end of December. My old ones were 50 years old (really!) and looked like crap. The new ones are modern stainless steel. At this time I raised my prices to $1 minute and switched the credit card to count up. CC’s are $3 minimum and $15 maximum. I’m seeing a lot of $15 charges. I’m expecting some people to protest the charge. So far none. I suspect it just gets lost in the CC bill and they pay it. I do have a sign that explains to push the stop button when done.
I wish I had done it sooner.
 
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Mine was at $15.00 when I first opened, a lot of people were running their card twice so I raised it to $20.00. I've only had one person complain about it.
 
I have had count up for years and very few issues. I did have a customer from Canada the other day who swiped his card and sat there waiting to wash until the timer reached five dollars. He was very confused and told me that whoever designed the system should make the increments $.10 instead of one cent because he sat there a long time waiting for the five dollars to accumulate before he thought he could start.He seemed pretty embarrassed when I told him that he can swipe the card and start washing right away. I put in 10 tokens so he could take his time and told him to have a nice day.
 
Waxman said:
I have had count up for years and very few issues. I did have a customer from Canada the other day who swiped his card and sat there waiting to wash until the timer reached five dollars. He was very confused and told me that whoever designed the system should make the increments $.10 instead of one cent because he sat there a long time waiting for the five dollars to accumulate before he thought he could start.He seemed pretty embarrassed when I told him that he can swipe the card and start washing right away. I put in 10 tokens so he could take his time and told him to have a nice day.
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I have seen this many times and it baffles me that they don't notice the bay is running. Count up concept is so foreign to some people.
 
Waxman said:
I have had count up for years and very few issues. I did have a customer from Canada the other day who swiped his card and sat there waiting to wash until the timer reached five dollars. He was very confused and told me that whoever designed the system should make the increments $.10 instead of one cent because he sat there a long time waiting for the five dollars to accumulate before he thought he could start.He seemed pretty embarrassed when I told him that he can swipe the card and start washing right away. I put in 10 tokens so he could take his time and told him to have a nice day.
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I've had this a lot. None of the washes in town use count up.
 
West Michigan
Just increase price from $.50 per min to $.75 per min. Start price went from $2 start to $3 start. CC and cash the same.
Vacuum $1 for 5 min. (need to increase to $2)
 
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