Competitor dropped his price to 50 cents.

What he wants and gets are two different things. With his current efforts his profitability will take a real hit. I think if you wait you will see his price drop. I would probably just let him know you might have some interest at this point and leave it at that.

I live in Atlanta. If I can help in any way PM me.

Well. Yall were right. My competitor went from 50 cent to for sale. Im going to call him today. Now to figure out what to offer him for it. And should I keep it open or close it, if I buy it. I would hate for somebody else to buy it. But, if they did they would have a lot to put into it to bring it up to par with mine. Thoughts?

I like the idea of being your own competitor.

If possible buy the wash. If someone else buys it, you will go thru the same problem till they go broke. Buy it, and rehab it, and keep the name the same, until you feel comfortable that the wash is up to par.

I had a new modern wash that I built in 2004 (that I sold in January). Recently, when someone bought the old wash a mile away and revamped it, I lowered my starting price to $1.00 for 4 min. instead of $2.50 for 4 minutes. Just to let the guy know I was there and that he would need to feel some pain. He lowered his to 50 cents for a "August Special" for one minute and it extended it on after that. After a summer of promoting my lower start price, I saw no increase or decrease in my overall gross. I think it was a good move as most of my customer base preferred my new modern car wash and with the new lower price they really did not have any reason to try out the newer competition with the older wash. In some respects, I think him lowering his cost to 50 cents cheapened his nice renovations. If my sales would have dropped off and I did nothing, I would have regretted it.

Buzzie8 said:

I had a new modern wash that I built in 2004 (that I sold in January). Recently, when someone bought the old wash a mile away and revamped it, I lowered my starting price to $1.00 for 4 min. instead of $2.50 for 4 minutes. Just to let the guy know I was there and that he would need to feel some pain. He lowered his to 50 cents for a "August Special" for one minute and it extended it on after that. After a summer of promoting my lower start price, I saw no increase or decrease in my overall gross. I think it was a good move as most of my customer base preferred my new modern car wash and with the new lower price they really did not have any reason to try out the newer competition with the older wash. In some respects, I think him lowering his cost to 50 cents cheapened his nice renovations. If my sales would have dropped off and I did nothing, I would have regretted it.

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So even though you lowered your price you saw no drop in gross revenue?

No drop in gross. Lowered overall price by 50 cents for same amount of time, and lowered start to $1.00 for two minutes (previously $2.50 for 4 minutes). Spent about $125 for 4 banners to put over each bay and one out front stating new start price and left them up all summer.

I don't mean to belittle anyone, but none of the reasons listed here for buying this wash are good reasons for buying this wash. In my opinion you have to approach this decision as if you are trying to get into the business for the first time. Is that wash a business you would consider buying on its own merits? If not, end of story. Buying a wash to prevent competition is silly. Even though it's a small town, someone can still open up another wash and you will have less money to operate your main wash. Not only that, you will now have two washes that have to compete. Unless you can buy/control all the land within a 5 mile radius, you can't "prevent" competition. Every time a competitor has opened up near one of my washes I say to myself "Well, at least that fills out the area. Someone would have to be an idiot to build a new wash here now". Sure enough, I start seeing "coming soon" signs. We'll always get 3 or 4 new washes after I think the area is saturated. Maybe I'm just bad at demographic analysis.

Don't worry, just hang in there and make yours the BEST not the cheapest car wash in town.

BTW 50 cents for 4 minutes doesnt cover his cost so the more he sells the more he looses