Car volume

With the rise in gas prices(it's freaking ridiculous) and the economy going down in spirals, how are everyone else's business? This week has been the slowest week for me since we first opened. Anyone else having the same or similar trends/problems?

You are not alone. I have a lot of customers that call and ask me "how everyone else is doing?". This is a ruff time for many. If you look through some of the older threads you will find great pieces of advice from other operators that might work for you.

People will get used to the high gas prices and things will level out. Remember a few years back when gas prices doubled to $2 a gallon in a few months? Everyone was panicking as if it meant the end of the car wash industry, and now it's pretty much forgotten.

Go back and check periodically every 4 years, for me election years are always weird. people hangin on to there money a little longer for unsurness of the future. with everything else it doesn't help. When it's busy it is busy and when it's SLOW it's really slow!!!!

This is a high and low busines. After 20 years I think I'm still in it for the "highs" that come around once and awhile. It's almost like you hit the lottery one week and then lose your shirt the next week. This is a pace yourself business. Standarize on your weekly draws - pay yourself a set level of pay - leave the extra alone for bad weeks. It's rough to get into the groove, but worth it in the end. I've had so many bad weeks or months I'm numb, but somehow we make it through. My speech doesn't make it any easier but this is what we do. Don't ever feel like you are alone.

Better times a comin - count on it.

Joe
www.crowncarwashinc.com

We're down 5% on volume so I feel pretty lucky as we increased prices back in September by $1.00, so mcuh of that has been offet. I hear though that many are off by as much as 20-30%.

Like Joe said, everything better times are coming. What we've found is that its really not the economy or gas prices that have killed as as much as it has been the lousy weather. Every winter in the last 11 years since we swicthed to exterior only we've had at least 2 out the 4 winter months where did in excess of 10,000 cars (usually 12-13,000) this was the first winter ever that we did not break 10,000 in any month. Our only silver lining was having a January that was 5,000 cars better than the previous one. Without that we'd be down 10%.

What is most important to do now is to somehow find a way of improving the wash process and therefor reduce labor, keeping up both the interior and exterior of your wash, and finding way of differentiating yourself from the competition with perks like moist, disposable, courtesy towels so people can wipe their dash and door, imprinted litter bags, or informational newsletters about car care tips, specials, wash books, club cards, etc.
We've been doing all the above and if we run out of any these items, customers are often disappointed. The towels and litter bags cost us just under 15 cents a car. The newsletters we hand out bi-annually (fall-winter, spring summer. Look, you have 3-4 minutes to educate your customers about their car and its appearance. I am always amazed at people's ignorance when it come to mainatining their vehicle's appearance.

Don't get down in the dumps. Get out of your wassh. Go to competitors and see what they are or are not doing and how you compare. Not only can you come away with good ideas, but you may come away thanking God for what you have. At the end of the day, there is nothing you can do when the weather works against you. You simply batten down the hatches, reduce spending to all but what you absolutely need to but without letting the place go to hell. Most importantly, keep everything working. Nothing ticks off customers more than going through a car wash and equipment not working or signs not illuminating.

Are volume is up 60% and are NET income is up 85%. You have your good weeks and your bad weeks.

I'm sure our volume drop has a little to do with gas prices, but Mother Nature is really doing us in. It has rained every Friday, Saturday, or both for the last seven weeks.

Kwikss
Did you just open that location? If not, enjoy those numbers, because with numbers like that I'm sure competetion will be moving in soon.

Nope I have 5 Full Services around me within a 5 miles radius and 3 express washes. Been open 5 years in Aug. God has just blessed us and our businesses.

Slow here, rainy weekends don't help. Hope gas comes down soon. It will affect our driving habits if it keeps up. I know the $100 plus fill up crossed a huge psychological barrier for me. Now instead of driving to a group of restaurants seven miles away for lunch, I think to myself "that's 7.00 for lunch and 4.00 in diesel I will spend to get there". So I eat closer to my wash. I didn't do that last year when it was $3 commute. But that triple digit fill up changed my habits. Seems possible less driving could mean fewer dirty cars. Just a thought.....

GPack

I know what you mean. But I drive beater cars and still don't spend more than $40 at a whack for gas. Plus, I think of all those Dunkin D's coffees at $2/ea. plus lunches out, I make coffee at home and bring it to the wash as well as lunches when I can (though I admit I am lazy about making my lunch). Just making coffee every day saves $500 a year!

Dave, when you get my age(55) you can get senior coffee at McD. for 54c. I'm hooked on it.

Talken about sales:) When we opened up this 6 bay SS we inherited from a Bank Rupt Tennant that built the wash on our property we where told to tear it down and save property tax's or at least turn it into a Used car lot and make some money we decided to try and resurect the business. We need $3,000.00 per month to make us feel its at least worth saving from the dozzers. The place it only 7 years old but had bad managment and poor mainenance, we have learned the ropes :) at least some of them , and have been working hard at keeping the wash clean and working properly. Every day we take the Bills (cash) out of the coin changer and count it just to see what the wash did last 24 hours. We started of with $27.00 two months ago. This morning we found $100.00 worth of bills in the machine. Praise the Lord for miricles :)
Of cource we would like to make more but $100.00 per day will pay tax's, and running cost and let us hold the property till be find a buyer .
Will report how it goese periodicly and thanks for you guys being there when we have questions. This forum has been very helpfull.
Alos if anybody wants a old Mark VII automatic for sheap... Let me knwo I got to empty the whare house :)

Sometimes bringing back a self serve can be tough. If you had a bad meal at a restauant you just don't go back - no matter who owns it. Change the name, offer free washes for a weekend, run an ad in the local paper, beef up the chemicals, make your price lower than the competition. I had a new operator take over a wash close to me several years back. The wash (5 bays with an automatic) did a dismal $30K/yr. The new guy advertised, painted up the place, installed cameras, kept the place immaculate, new vacs, banners, kept up with repairs - he did the works. I did'nt do anything and still did three times his volume. His location and traffic count was much better than mine. He threw in the towel two years later with $27K in sales - went down ? I know all of this since I talked to him on the phone two months after he closed. You have to do something encourage people to come in again. You have to be very aggressive.

Joe

For me I thought gas had something to do with things and I'm sure it does in a small way but for me in NH it's got to be the weather. I have not had a fri-sat with out a chance of precip in 4 weeks now and before then it was two months. When the weather is nice we are busy. But having a lot of rainy days to think about things I really appreciate the business a little more. This last Saturday It reached about 80 degrees here. I went to sams club and bought 4 30packs of springwater for 13 bucks and brought my cooler from home and 3 bags of Ice. Our vacs are free with the tunnel and IBA. So I walked around the yard asking customers if they would like to take a break with a almost frozen water. When it's warm something so samll makes a hugh impact. People were so delighted from the gesture not bad for costing me 15 bucks total. I spoke to 6 newbies at our location (info they gave up) telling them this is not an everyday thing but just a gesture because there working just as hard as my crew and I have the same for them. Sorry for floating off track but I think once the weather becomes really nice evaeryone will settle right back in. Even my highline customers are coming and and the wheels are black and the film on it is thick. I ask where have you been " everytime I go to wash the car it's going to rain just waiting for a nice day" Small gestures can really put a positive spin on your wash. One neat idea in the last few weeks was I put up signage"win a free wash buy an air freshener" I have a laurel 5 drop tree vendor. I taped free washes to random airfresheners. 1 in 10 win. There was a line at the machine and one would get one from just putting a buck in people were saying let me in there. The machine was out in almost a half a day . People have been asking when are you gonna do the tree lotto again. Maybe next few weeks or something it cost me I think 10 freebies. But people were winning and probally told some family members co workers and friends about there experience. "where is that place again" a few new customers hopefully from it. My change machine was full and the vending was empty, there were just a lot of wrappers I had to clean up all over the parking lot.

Finally we had a perfect weekend (friday-Monday) and washed 2,000 cars. Just goes to show me what I've always known. If you put out a great wash, when you do get the perfect storm (dirty cars and good weather on the weekend) you wash csrs regardless of the price of gas. Although, I would imagine we could have done more if the price of gas had been less.

Great Bill, you hit the nail on the head. When people are focused on any interruption in their normal flow of life, ie: up swing in gas/food prices, dramatic change in weather(colder, hotter, storms), natural disasters, world calamity, war, whatever is rocking their normally stable, day to day, "boat of life"....they don't wash as often. Remember how dead it was after 9-11. We were all glued to the tv, ad nauseum. When we get a hurricane in the gulf...you can forget washing cars that week. Everyone is talking about it and glued to the weather channel. And I'm sure it's the same for you when there's a prediction of blizzard.

Our service is not a necessity...it's a luxury. We are very low, unfortunately, on most people's totem pole of importance. There are some fanatics for clean, but for many going to the car wash is like going to the dentist. They've had problems in car washes before or heard rumors and are just intimidated by the equipment. Consumer studies by the ICA has shown, there are quite a few people that use professional car washes only on special occassions(wedddings, holidays, etc) or if they have a special cleaning problem (salt, bugs, ash, etc). Washing their car is a habit for most that's easily postponed.

Right now, we are all too focused on the price of gas, the election, and the economy. The "haves" are scared...and the "have nots" are just struggling to buy gas and food.

All things considered, the weather is still our greatest benefactor. Bad times tend to separate the wheat from the chaff in every industry. The good operators will survive and the poor will suffer.

Better days ahead!

Jimmy, I think you got most of it. Durring the "disasters" people are preoccupied. Durring the hurricanes down hear (as well as with Dennis in your area) I came to a stand still for 3-4 weeks. This war has drug down the economy some, but the gas prices and the housing market is what is killing us in this area. Construction (residental) is a nonexistant and commercial is slow. I almost never see a contractor come through the wash whereas they use to be 15-20% of my customers 2 years ago. 2007 ended 7% down from 2006 that was 10% off from 2005. I seem to be picking back up (which was last years trend too) after a slow Jan-March (which was down by 20% from 2007). The weather has been fantastic (too good... its was 85 at 7:30 this morning). But we could use some rain. The SS is way down! I'm off 30% last month and this month and love bugs were almost nonexistant this season! It seems that the lower income are having a more difficult time with rising food & gas prices (gas isn't in the CPI for inflation) and this is why we are seeing tunnels reporting a down income of 20% average (from what I am gathering) and SS/IBA 30-40% down average.

I'm hopeful that after the first of the year that this will relax as people get over the "sticker shock" of gas prices and adjust their spending habbits and this election cycle passes. People are "unsure" of the economic future in the US and this is not good for consume confidence (I think it was reported as the lowest in 25 years) along with a week housing market and the treat of inflation. People don't want to spend... that includes discretionay car washes.