what's a good distance between two stores under one ownership?

[thinkclean]

2 miles, 3 miles, 5 miles? In other words what's the distance a customer will absolutely not drive beyond to get to one laundromat if there's a closer one that's well run.

[STOUT]

I have customers that have traveled over 60 miles to use my mat passing another mat in the town they reside in.
But in all fairness I would say 5 + miles. It greatly depends on your population.

[surfflite]

Same here. I have many customers who pass as many as 5 mats to get to mine. If it is cleaner & friendlier than the others they will come. Some 60-80 miles away.

[Brett]

Last year I purchased a mat that I did not know even existed about 3 miles from my largest mat (have 3 now). Once I gutted the PIG and retooled with a combo of new and used equipment I found that about half of my customers at this mat had always passed this dog and gone to my largest mat. So I know for a fact they will drive past one for at least three miles. PS thought I might have hurt my biggest mat with lost sales to this one, but I seem to be holding my own. Place was always over run and now I guess more people have found it.. You never know!!!!

[CanCanCase]

Our town has a total of 4 mats operating for a population of about 50K. The city is divided by 3 major streets, and it doesn't appear folks cross the major avenues very often to wash.

In an "unsaturated" environment, competition is healthy, no matter the business. As I begin searching for the next location in town (and the next and the next) it pencils out well to first explore the existing locations (several are 5+ miles from my current location, but only 1 mile or so from each other) and then explore new locations. In either event, I'm finding it best to separate stores based on these geographic divisions, rather than a given average distance.

-Case