post here or newbie owner area.

[gnxsam]

I recently bought a coin wash in hampton roads, virginia. we are located a tad bit off a main street in a strip mall. we sent two weeks completely remodeling the place ourselves, and saved a ton of money of course. are machines are solid and selling candy/soda by having a full time attendant who is great. we do wash dry fold, but here is the problem. the place had been closed for remodeling for 2 weeks and the owner before was strange, had been selling drugs there and creating a bad business. but its the cleanest and nicest it has looked in 10 years- i hear that alot from our customers. we did flyers, a weak grand opening, have a full time attendant during the week and a weekend girl which is great. but business is slow, still less the 1 turn per week on average. but it is picking up now after putting up signs near the street (which have since been stolen) and a now open huge sign out front which has helped. we do have a competitor down the block with a similar sized store, but many people do not like the owner- and our store is cleaner and better lit. but he does have a local girl in there, we do not. it is an area that is a low income area, but our attendant during the week is caucasian and speaks little english- i feel like this is a bad idea, any input on what we could do? please help? i want to makes this work and our place is clean, well lit, safe and offers good services. what else can we do...please chime in

sp
ps i hate to be open like this, but there is something missing

[Rich]

Sounds to me like you better make sure people know there is a new owner. Customars have to feel safe. Large under new management sign.

[gnxsam]

i got one of those in the front windows. nice and large. i do not mean to be so blunt but i figured i would just kind of see what people thought. we did paint our machines, or at least refinish the fronts, and that has worked great.

[fishmanz]

i got one of those in the front windows. nice and large. i do not mean to be so blunt but i figured i would just kind of see what people thought. we did paint our machines, or at least refinish the fronts, and that has worked great.

Advertise. Run an ad in the local paper with a $5 coupon. Put new road signs out and bring them in at night. Do a soap givaway. Vend size box of soap on every machine for a week. Honer your compititions coupons plus $1. Anounce a grand re-opening with free food and drinks. Do it on a Sunday, not a Wednesday. Pay a kid to put flyers around the neighborhood. Put them on cars and doors, not in mailboxs as that is illeagel. Do anything and everything you can think of. Good Luck! :)

[kxabelas]

You will have to be patient. We had the same problem ... it took word of mouth which doesn't happen overnight. We bought our store 8 months ago. Our business jumped up 5 - 6 months later and we now still have new customers coming in saying "our friends told us ". Your employee has to be able to speak to the customers no matter what language the employee speaks. 80% of our customers are hispanic. Our employee is hispanic and speaks limited English. But, she speaks enough to handle the WDF and dry clean drop off we have and the caucasion and hispanics all like her.