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Flashy Car Wash
Are monthly plans right for In-Bay Automatics?
Introduction
Flashy Car Wash, a dual Wash World High Velocity IBA site, was built in 2006 in the town of Lodi Ohio. The population of Lodi has remained consistent at around 3000 people. This location is directly off the highway in Medina County Ohio. Traffic count of the highway is about 41,294 per day (2020). Traffic count on the actual road peaked in 2014 at 13,465 cars per day. Since 2014, traffic count has decreased significantly to only 7837 cars per day (2020).
Hindsight is 20/20
Flashy Car Wash was built when the local attraction and shopping venue, “Ohio Station Outlets” was growing. Unfortunately, fortunes changed, and the outlets suffered major setbacks for various reasons.
As of January 2022, out of 76 retail units available at the mall, 57 units are empty. Due to this downturn of traffic and support, restaurants and other businesses in the vicinity have also closed.
Make a Decision
As traffic counts, retail business, and local restaurants dwindled, the decision was made to implement a monthly pass program at Flashy Car Wash. Monthly Plans at an In-Bay Automatic, where limited throughput exists, seemed counter to conventional wisdom. The fear of cannibalizing retail wash sales was high. And how would it be done? The site setup demanded an unattended pay station system that was both easy for customers to use and fraud proof for the owner’s peace of mind. That combination did not yet exist.
At this same time, Dencar Technology had developed point of sale prototypes meeting these two criteria. In March of 2020, Flashy Car Wash installed Dencar retrofit doors for their existing Hamilton Gold Line pay stations. The Dencar platform included monthly wash plans and fraud mitigation using Dencar’s patent pending Vehicle Identification Automation system (VIA Guard). The results were staggering. No other changes to the wash were implemented. No onsite employment was ever used at this site except for maintenance and trash removal.
The Results
In the 22-month period of March 2020 through December 2021, the following growth was observed.
During this 22-month period, revenue increased by 51% while the average sale price per vehicle only decreased by 11%. Simultaneously, the washed car count increased by 55%, from 17,602 cars washed in 2020, to 27,320 cars washed in 2021 (a 12-month period).
The addition of monthly plans not only increased the volume of monthly customers, but due to the general increased activity of the site, full pay retail sales increased by 11% from 2020 to 2021. This was one of the most surprising observations as it means the addition of the pass program was completely additive to the site.
Conclusion
Dencar Technology helped to significantly increase car wash sales in a local environment where all other factors were decreasing. Monthly plans at an In-Bay Automatic yield similar results found at tunnel washes. Currently high volume In-Bay Automatics are being built with Dencar Technology to prove the model further and reach wash numbers never realized from In-Bay Automatic sites.
The owner has stated that he’s now curious as to how much income he has missed out on over all these years without a properly functioning monthly wash program and has installed Dencar pay stations at all his other locations. The location of this study has now been sold at a much higher amount than would have been available just 2 years prior.
