Ya Gotta love it!

[AlanR]

A local long-time and very successful mat owner visited his store recently and found that he had new competition. An experienced mat owner covertly built a brand new mat just two storefronts away. Though surely up to his ears in debt, he offered fifty cent washes to snag the customers away from the first guy. Much to his chagrin, the first guy dropped his washes to twenty-five cents which he can easily afford to do until the price war is over. It's going to be interesting to watch this. The word on the street is that the new guy is struggling to find ways to attract business. This proves the adage that, if you mess with the bull, you get the horn.

[Adamski]

Alan,

Wow. I think I'll take the Lake Express ferry and come across to process our Drop Off Laundry there. (Just kidding, folks. It costs over $150 to take a vehicle round trip across Lake Michigan.)

This just proves that opening a new laundromat is more risky than buying an existing laundromat because you never know how your competitors will react when you open your doors for the first time.

[Howard]

I told a guy a number of years ago when he was opening a store that if he priced his washers more than 25 cents less than mine I would drop my prices to 50 cents. Needless to say he did not have a grand opening with low prices. He knew that he would be wiped out if he started a price war.

[bodman]

Howard that was just mean, you a bad boy, shame on you.

[epic02]

Bodman, thats not mean I would do the same thing. The new guy should think twice about coming and stealing away customers. I made it clear to one competitor of mine that I do not pay rent and and if he thinks he can beat my prices he has another thing coming. And after his promotion ended I was going to do the same thing. If he does another promotion I'll do the next one even bigger. The rent this guy pays he needs all the customers and ones he can pull out of thin air he can get. Also There's a laundry that was just remodeled and up for sale in my area hopefully whoever is thinking about buying stumbles across this site, they'll save themselves a headache and I wont have to deal with anther promotion that I have to beat again.

[thinkclean]

A local long-time and very successful mat owner visited his store recently and found that he had new competition. An experienced mat owner covertly built a brand new mat just two storefronts away. Though surely up to his ears in debt, he offered fifty cent washes to snag the customers away from the first guy. Much to his chagrin, the first guy dropped his washes to twenty-five cents which he can easily afford to do until the price war is over. It's going to be interesting to watch this. The word on the street is that the new guy is struggling to find ways to attract business. This proves the adage that, if you mess with the bull, you get the horn.

opening a new store two fronts away is bold but you did say an experienced mat owner-operator did it anyway. what we don't know is how many tpd the incumbent was generating, the demographics, store layout and parking situation. we need more information on machine brand too. competing on price without differentiation is hardly believable in this era.

[AlanR]

opening a new store two fronts away is bold but you did say an experienced mat owner-operator did it anyway. what we don't know is how many tpd the incumbent was generating, the demographics, store layout and parking situation. we need more information on machine brand too. competing on price without differentiation is hardly believable in this era.

"We" don't need to know the TPDs, etc. It's the new mat owner who needed to know those things and obviously didn't do his homework. The new mat was failing two weeks ago and nothing has changed since. The long-time and very successful mat owner continues to flourish.

[Adamski]

[quote=AlanR;38564...The new mat was failing two weeks ago and nothing has changed since. The long-time and very successful mat owner continues to flourish.[/quote]

Alan,

Yes, if you can call selling washers for a quarter a turn "flourishing". I suspect he's just surviving.

[AlanR]

He appears to be putting his competition out of business and, having no debt except expenses, he is regaining his lost customers at more normalized prices. That said, I have no doubt that he is once again flourishing.