Welcome back to our three part series on revving up your car wash. Make sure to check out part one and part two of this series. Having vacuums and other profit centers such as shampooers, fragrance machines, and pet washes onsite can create more revenue for you in ways a tunnel alone simply can’t. Most locations have space to add these additional profit centers, and should. With most vehicles that come on your location, they could be spending an additional $2.00-$6.00 on these services. Even if you have a minimum of 10 cars a day, on the low end that’s an additional $600 a month in profit from low maintenance profit centers. This is revenue you could be missing out on if you are not taking advantage of marketing opportunities or maintaining the equipment to work properly.
Maintaining any of your equipment on site is important. However, maintaining the vacuum and shampoo equipment and keeping it running can make or break your customers overall experience at your location. Customers do notice when vacuums work better at one car wash over another. One aspect of maintenance lies in proper handling of the equipment. Getting your customers in the habit of taking care of your equipment is super helpful to maintain it over time. Keeping the space clean is also a huge aspect of the experience on site. Large, available garbage cans can help this, as well as regular stops to make sure the location is clean.
Adding a pet wash to your location can be a huge benefit to your business. As much as some people will spend on maintaining their cars, many will spend more on their pets. Having a pet wash gives your customers the ability to give their pets more than just a simple rinse like they can at home with a hose. Customers can rinse, wash with flea and tick shampoo, disinfect, use conditioner, and dry their pets. Depending on your pet wash, you can accommodate dogs up to 250 pounds! Beyond a more in-depth wash for pets, you are driving new customers to your site that may have not been there before and get them to use other services because of the convenience of it.
Having the capability to clean cars, vacuum/shampoo, and wash pets, allows you, as a business owner to take care of all of the needs of your customer in one space. And in all honesty, what more could you want?
At the end of the day, you don’t have to bow down to the tunnel down the street. You have opportunities that tunnels simply don’t. You have ways to market tunnel washes don’t. Opportunity for more business is knocking. You can open the door to more business through marketing to areas tunnels can’t touch.
We hope this series has enlightened you to the new things you can do for your business. Being an unattended wash location has its challenges, but it also has the full capabilities to be more profitable than you thought possible.