Car Wash Blog / Self Serve Industry Blog and Forum
Just found this picture…. I took this picture at the ICA show in 2010. This is how I use to get my subscription…. from his hand outs. 🙂 JJJ was a great guy and put out a super magazine. This might have been one of his last ICA appearances and magazines?
This was before the ICA show was actually open? When vendors set their booths up…. I had a backstage pass! Or a vendor pass…. I forgot? 🙂
Well I got Ziad Y Khoury’s book Frontline Profit Machine a $21.95 value from the 2010 SECWA Trade Show for FREE and I got the flowers out of the garbage for FREE. You can come up with the rest……
There was a new trend in the market this year at the ICA show and it was all web based. Two companies actually had booths, one I found their booth and the other I could not find. Then the 3rd company came over to the secwa booth, but I don’t think that they had their own booth. So the idea is this: your customer wants to wash their car, so they search the internet and somehow find one of these search sites. All the sites are basically the same: you have to enter your information and then people can search for your location. They also have coupons and you can run specials. ClosestCarWash.com looks like it was developed this year while mycarwashsavings.com looks like I developed it in the 1980s.
I talked to these guys at ClosestCarWash.com and they were really nice. They like the color orange and they unfortunately tell your customers the next 3 days worth of weather. 🙂 But on the plus side the website looks good and is really the only one out there!
mycarwashsavings.com Why would you use flash as my main navigator, which eliminates most mobile devices? And why do you have to use a plugin no one uses for a video player? I looked at this web site and I tried to figure out what they were doing. They want a lot of money for there service and they want the customer to pay them instead of you. Of course they take their cut of like 25%? I wouldn’t give them my credit card information if I was a customer or a carwash owner. Also their twitter account is already suspended and they still have the link on their page. Bad sign!
Here are some more pictures from the ICA show. I always go by the ERIE booth but I didn’t purchase anything this year. I went by Self Service CarWashNews to take a magazine even though I subscribe, for the flight back. I also like to go by Ra-Lock but their products seemed the same this year. Which I guess is good? No real break in problems this year.
Why is it every time I hear the word GREEN it makes me feel like there is a scam involved? The ICA had a Green Pavilion this year and you think “what are people trying to sell us this time?” But this is really bad even though I am not a treehugger.
From the ICA website ” All products accepted into the Green Pavilion must meet at least one of the following criteria” ONE!!!???
“Less toxic, Minimally polluting, More energy efficient, Safer and healthier for customers employees and the environment”
What product wouldn’t qualify? This is absolutely hilarious and makes you wonder about all the other GREEN scams out there!
Fragramatics sells the largest vacuum in the WORLD! Just what you need… a vacuum with everything on it. Talk about everything being in a huge knot every time someone uses anything. Just seems like a bad idea. Couple that with the unit probably being hard to work on for repairs like the older models. But I think they look the best in the business though, which is good except for the ugly flower. Well I thought it was fine until Greg pointed it out to me now I hate the flower.
Just a large air compressor… that’s all.
This was an interesting product. A basic J.E. Adams vacuum with a credit card reader, bill acceptor and coin acceptor.
A D/H Dilling-Harris self-serve bay in a vacuum stand!
This looks like it would be fun driving around the neighborhood!
I like RFID but this year they seemed to not push it as much.
Something that was really hard to find were dog washes. Also no motorcycle washes like last year.
From the makers of the Navigator (Pro Car Wash Equipment) they bring to you an interesting concept. An express tunnel that will fit in a self serve bay! Just add a conveyor and a pit.
Did you know that Sonny’s sells a friction and a touch free automatic? Sonny’s I think is going to hire everyone in the industry and also put everyone else out of business. If you watched the show floor the Sonny’s booth was where all the action was. Even places like Kleen-Rite need to watch out! Speaking of Kleen-Rite do you notice the thing on the right the touch free automatic? Yes it is a Cobra that purple thing that Kleen-Rite use to sell.
I really liked this product. This could replace your neon and stand up to vandalism better. I lost their show specials but their website says $500 for 100 foot roll. SunLitz LEDs by Rain Tunnel not really sure about their name. SunLiz? What is that suppose to be Sunled?
I really liked this product! But he did not have any brochures and business cards so I wrote in on one of my cards and I lost it. But you can set up the credit card processing through anyone unlike Etowah Valley’s system and you can also get a Hamilton credit card reader for it I think it costs around $2800? The system is for 6 ports and it costs around $6000? All it uses is 1 cat5 run to connect and high speed internet and you can repair the credit card reader!
Now I am going to have to try some Microcoin coin acceptors. These seem great! But if you look above the coin acceptor there is a little black box. That is part of the coin acceptor…… that is CRAPPY! But everything else sounds great. No tool opening to clear jams and seems easy to program. Will not jam with really crappy coins, it has a 2 year warranty, and it can be repaired reasonably unlike IDX X-10 (the guy said $60-$80). Plus you can program tons of coins and it is not that bad of a price (retails for $219.95).
First day of the ICA show!
They made a new rule this year for certain people that go around and solicit businesses for sales / advertising, but they did not enforce it. It is really a big problem and I guess you would just have to turn them in?
I really didn’t do anything today besides talk to people and really didn’t get around to taking that many pictures.
This is a view from my window. If you like tennis I guess it is okay?