Any business that depends on people physically traveling to a location needs an acceptable number of people in the immediate area who may want the services of that business. Sounds obvious, right?
How often have you heard something like this: “Boy, if I only had the money I’d put a (car wash, laundromat, coffee shop, etc.) right on that corner. I’d be rich!” and wonder if they were right?
In the car wash business it’s all about two main things. How many people are there in the area (population) and how many of those people will drive past a certain location on a daily or weekly basis (traffic count). Before you buy land, or seriously consider putting a car wash on a piece of commercial property you already own, go ahead and get a solid population number figured out. This is going to be very handy when it comes to talking with banks, with car wash consultants and with car wash franchise companies.
Your first place to look is the local Chamber of Commerce. These folks very often have a wealth of information on the towns population and demographics. This is also a good group of people to get to know anyway for all aspects of doing business in the town or village.
The local town or county governmental offices should also have some solid population and demographic data that you can use. In both cases be sure to check how old the data really is. Keep in mind that the official US. Census only takes place once every 10 years so if your county or Chamber is using that data it could be pretty old!
Be sure to stop by the local Department of Motor Vehicles and/or Tax Assessors Office to find out how many cars are registered in the area and how many licensed drivers there are. All potential customers!
Find out all about the car wash business at OpenaCarWash.com. Thanks for reading!
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