Dryer price increases

[Harold]

I have a card system that will allow me to raise the price of my dryers from $.25 to $.30. I could also leave my price alone at $.25 and shorten my time,but this is the same option availble to anybody in the business. Since my gas prices are going through the roof I have to do something. I hhave already decided to raise my washer prices and I am sure of what I am doing with them, it is just the dryers that I am unsure about. As I said I am new to this business and I have heard that customers are more sensitive to changes in dryers than washers.To me it seems more logical to raise the price rather than to shorten the dry time. Since my card sytem lets me go in $.05 increments I think that this is a logical way to go and pass on a 20% increase. Since non-card stores would have to do a $.25 increase or a $.50 dry price is this why prices are not raised on dryers but times are shortened.I would like to put this into effect by the middle of July. I would appreciate any comments on this issue from either card stores or non-card stores. Just anybody who can tell me about their expeiences or opinions on raising dryer revenue either through price increases or time shortening.
Thanking you in advance.

[Marianne]

With your card system you should be able to do the price increase more easily. However, why not improve on that? Figure out what is the amount of time to get most stuff dry and then charge a buck for that time. or fifty cents for half the time. The customers will only notice how many times they need to insert the card to get a dry load: two is better than three and only once is better than that. By the way, I don't have a card system so maybe I don't know something important to this decision.

[Howard]

Why are you only able to do $0.5 increments rather than $0.01 increments?

[BraveDave]

We have 3 locations all cash basis, no cards. We have not raised any dryer prices, have raised washer prices at 2 of the stores. One store we are in a competition war and not able to up that stores prices. These stores have been family run for 30+ years and we have found that people are extremely sensitive to dryer price increases or time decreases. We charge .25cents for 7 1/2 minutes. Our competition went to 7 minutes and we received many customers from them. The compettion then raised the time back. We have a much busier store in a rural area that have dryers at 10 minutes for .25cents. We have just purchased the new double stack Maytag for that store we have those machines at 12 minutes for .25cents. Customers like the older Huebsh dryers much better, they are hotter. The huebsh are nowhere near as efficient. We are trying to persuade the use of the new dryers with more time for your money. These gas prices are enough to kill us. We have one store that is propane only, we made a deal with a propane company to chage us only .20cents over cost. That helps, good luck on your dilemma!

[ndennis]

In reply to Bravedave's comment When buying stack driers you should compare the radial flow type against the axial flow type. I ran two Huebsch axial and two ADC radial driers together. I washed 140 hairdressers towels split them into two lots and put one in each dryer. The ADC dried in 30 minutes and the Huebsch took over 32 minutes. It required about 2 minutes of another vend to get them dry The ADC was set at 10 minutes for a vend and the Huebsch was set at 8 minutes for a vend. I tried this experiment using the same washer and driers several times and the result was the same each time. This experiment was carried out in early spring. Hope this is of some use to you.

[Howard]

The only problem with the analysis is that it will only work for those towels. Every load is different. Tee shirts take a different amount of time than socks, than do blue jeans, etc...

[ndennis]

Yes Howard it does only apply to the towels but whilst I had the two Huebsch driers in use (2 months) the customers very quickly found out which were the better driers. There were weeks when the Huebsch driers took very little money. When I put all driers at 8 minutes for a vend the take in the Huebsch driers was almost nill. Some weeks not even enough for me to buy my grandchildren a treat. As has been stated on this and the Wasco site Customers very quickly find out which are the best (warmest and quickest) driers.

[petefritz]

If I had a card system I would go to the 30 cent for 9 mins, or 10. The reason most non card users shorten time is becuase it is the only viable option on non computor dryers. I have decreased dryer time twice in the last 12 months, and have had little or no customer complaint. Gas is less now, so raise the price and hope gas stays steady so you can make up the lost profits. I also raised some washer prices. I do not think it is smart to put all the price hike on washers, think about those dry only customers... they are getting off cheap! Keep you wash/dry/utility ratios as steady as you can, spread the increases around.

[Aaron]

Customers are super sentitive to dryer price increases; however, in this period of advertised utility cost increases, customers do understand the need to reduce time or increase the price. Also, customers are more willing to accept increases in price, but are less acceptable to decreases in time. Furthermore, if you increase the price without touching the time, customers feel that they are getting the same product for a reasonable price increase. Another aspect, especially for those of us running cash system stores, is to consider charging an initial price of double (two quarters) for 15 minutes versus one quarter for 8 minutes to start the dryer so that the customer's load will be closer to being dry after the initial deposit of two coins.