Impulse vs. Destination

In an express wash scenario, do you think it is more of an IMPULSE buy or a DESTINATION point? I know there are both, so I guess I am trying to get a feel on what the percentages would be.

This is a hard question for me to answer. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

A lot of things come into play when trying to answer this question.

I believe location can vary this percentage greatly. We are on a high traffic street with a lot of transient traffic.

We have a lot of impulse buyers. We estimate 10% of our is business is "one time" customers.
Customers who wash once and never come back, simply because we are not convenient to them in their normal driving patterns (many are from out of our city or even from out of state).

And we have a lot of non frequent washers that use us when they are in our area but not regularly.

We feel we achieve this by having great visibility, good signage, good curb appeal, fair access,a location that has a “safe” reputation, and traffic that lends itself to this type of customer.

The next factor we think is very important is speed. A customer that trust that they can come in and get out quickly is more likely to make impulse purchases.

We feel if we make them wait, they will not trust us to make that impulse purchase, when they are in a time limited situation. We feel the image of “fast” is very important. We work hard to instill a attitude of “hustle” with all our employees. We wash with a very fast line speed every day.

We want to be perceived as: fast, convenient, and a great value. If we do that we feel our “impulse” sales increase.