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The pet industry continues to grow every year. People love their pets and many times are willing to pamper them more than their vehicle. Pets are part of the family and when you treat a member of the family well, you’re going to earn repeat customers.
Wash owners are always looking for new ways to bring in revenue and one way to do so is through the family pet. However, it’s not enough to just build a pet wash at your location, the service must be promoted well or people will not use it. The pet wash business has improved over the years by offering an effective complementary service to your Car Wash. Another piece of food for thought is that pets need to be cleaned year-round. Business wise, pet washes are more stable than car washes, which are often affected greatly depending on the weather.
The washes are also effective in generating new business in a way that is familiar to car wash owners, and requires a similar infrastructure. A pet wash can bring in a new client base that will look to the car wash to not only wash the car but also to wash the dog. There are synergies between the two and there’s not a great deal to adding a pet wash to a car wash.
Spreading the word about pet washes
The Australian pet wash market, has been ahead of others, like the U.S., in adopting pet washes as a valuable additional profit center. Many new carwashes are built with a pet wash and existing washes are adding them to keep up. IBISWORLD lists the “Household Pet Products and Services” sector for 2009 at a whopping $7.26BN – that’s bigger than Footwear(IBIS), bigger than the Motel Industry (IBIS), bigger than Beef (ABS Stats) and bigger than Hairdressing!
Now THAT’s a lot of love for pets!
The main challenge that car wash owners face regarding pet washes, is customer awareness about their services. Many consumers are unaware of the product offering and not entirely certain how it operates; hence they are more likely to overlook it. Thus the challenge is to introduce and explain the process of the pet wash, emphasising that it is a self-service and the costs involved. A potential customer needs to know things like the price of the wash, how long it will take and what services and add-ons are available.
Providing a friendly environment that pet owners feel comfortable in is another important step in engaging the pet wash customer. Once you’ve shown a customer that your wash will treat their pet well, they will definitely trust your business to take proper care of their vehicle.
Advertising and working with pet organizations
An option for successful advertising of your pet wash services is to offer specials in conjunction with the entire wash experience and not running ads strictly around the pet wash. Another effective strategy is to be more targeted with advertising and to market to pet shops, training schools and veterinarians. This allows wash owners to target their exact demographic and bring in new customers to the car wash, many of whom would not have used their car wash service otherwise.
According to the experts pet washes have a bright future and owners have many options available to improve revenue. If the pet wash owners dedicated some time and effort reaching out to those who may use their services, have mutual interest and take this expanding industry seriously, it could enhance their revenue, create more goodwill with their client base and increase loyal, repeat customers.
