How to combat Free Dry

[WhatwasIThinkin]

I bought a mat 3 months ago. HAve worked hard to get numbers back up after previous owner was buried by a new store up the road. The new store went to free dry for 5 month slast fall, killed the previous owners number and he gave up and sold to me. This mega wash up the street is not making enough in this area to cover his costs/note. Now he is (rumored) to be going to free dry. How would you guys combat this?
more facts
-customers came back after he stopped free dry last time-mad at him.
-my wash prices are much lower. 18-20lb machine $1.75 vs $2.25
-his store is new but mine is clean, friendly etc.
-I have been advertising a lot.

I feel like telling customers that I can go free too but would raise wash prices and when he/we stop free dry, all of their prices will be higher.
thoughts?
RG

[DuboisLaundry]

put a sign above your dryers showing your better wash price and their free dry and higher wash price. be sure to point out why yours is better overall. Some cheapskates with wash with you and dry with them. They can't afford to do that forever hopefully you can outlast them be sending some of your customers to dry with him for a while

[kbc747]

The sad fact is people connect with FREE anything, even if it is not free. The best you can do is educate the consumer or look at doing the nasty yourself, meaning go FREE dry. The other thing is look at temps and dry time when you compare. Can you dry a load in your laundry for the .50 cent difference right now? Remember his logic, he got the last owner to give up and you are new, maybe with debt and maybe you will give up sooner. Free dry just might be how you have to go, but don't wait till its to late to look at a new way of doing business, after all he never liked it that much and ended it once so maybe read Petes success with the 1/2 price wash and try something like that for a month and see how free the dry looks then. Staying pat is not a option, you must do something in my mind.

[anonymous]

Better yet, offer FREE WASH on a few small machines. It probably costs you less to give away a few free washes than it does to give free dry these days.

[Laundryandmore]

An idea would to combat the free drys with free washes at some of your slower times of the week. Maybe on weds. from noon to 3pm.
I am thinking of doing this at my mat. I just had another mat do a full remodel with EVERYTHING new. So I am slowly renovating mine and advertising. My business hasn't declined.

In fact as I try more marketing I hope it increases. He has a card system and some of his customers come to my mat because they don't want to be tied down to his.

[soapman]

Look on the other site about my "price war". My business is way up, we are monitoring the competition daily. The free wash worked and did not cost that much. You must do something to get your customers back. I bought new dryers and will be buying some new 20lb washers soon.

[WhatwasIThinkin]

Great ideas guys. Question. How do you do free anything when you are a coin store? I did free dry on Thursdays (just ended) and found people taking 5 druers when they need 2 and saying they have 10 dryers when they are using 5. My attedants give them cash because I offered 1/2 hour free dry per machine on Thursdays. How do you do these things in a coin store?

[Ken]

I spoke to a laundry owner once,he was in the free dry market,he was going to install 1 or 2 Bock extracters for customer to use for free in a free dry market so the clothes will be almost dry then he will offer cheap dry so he won't have people use too many dryers since it was not really free.

[John H]

Roger,
Although it gives me the willies to think about giving anything away for free, I think one way you could do it in a coin store is to remove the vaults on the machines and let the coins simply drop through. That works on my SQ dryers, although I've not tried it on my washers.

John

[Anonymous]

if you give your services away for free your customers will always expect it

[Ken]

if you give your services away for free your customers will always expect it


It is nothing you can do about in some overbuilt market,it is only way to keep door open in those area,it is bad news for this business but once the free dry start,it is very hard to stop.I heard hight gas price force a few stores stop free dry last year .