Closing down the business

[Markie]

Sorry to hear this mate... Hope things get better in the future.

[Homer]

Very sorry to hear of this, running a small business is just getting tougher and tougher these days.

 

As CJ and others have said, a mobile valet service is the way to go.

A chap who lives down the road from me started doing this a couple of years ago. He started it from nothing but after a bit of persistence was allowed to post add's on the noticed boards of many of the local large companies (mostly blue chip types and medium sized businesses). After 6 months he is never short of work and says he does over 50% of his trade via the bigger businesses. He says he makes a good living from it. (He drives a brand new Evo so can't be too badly off!)

[mad k]

Maybe with all these guys that people know setting up mobile companys thats not the best idea, Seems it might be saturated with them.

 

I had always thought about mobile valeting and doing boats, Dont know how big the call is in aberdeen for it, but The boat market could be worthwile doing, Cleaning, de-scaling , maintaing the leather and polishing ect.

 

Sorry if its a idea, Just trying to help with ideas on a bad situation.

 

K.

[Scoboblio]

Sorry to hear this mate, hope things go okay for you in the future.

[MichaelG]

The market is indeed saturated with mobile valeting in Aberdeen just now, thats been one of our biggest problems. People will randomly setup with a shitter of a van and go about "trying" to clean a car. Get hacked off with it a few months later and jack it in. But in the meantime they have pinched some of the valuable custom in the area and given the job a bad name by doing a crap job.

 

One thing i intend to do though, is to call all my customers from the bookings pad that we have for the last year and inform them i intend to do temporary mobile. see what it leads to.......the custom / client base is too good to let go of.

 

Michael

[MONKEYmark]

sorry to hear

could you not branch out into other areas.do you sell your products on ebay?

sisters mate does buying and selling on ebay and does it for a living.

 

all the best

[dangerous brain]

Not good. Perhaps its also a downturn in the economy that isn't helping. I know in my household that the first thing that goes out the window when things get tight is having someone else wash my car and out comes the sponge. Further up the quality ladder you get the higher your prices are so the more critical it is that people have money they can justify spending on lifes little luxuries.

 

Something else that probably wont help is the new places that spring up. Down my local high street there are 2 "american style handwashes" staffed by men that cant speak english knocking out very reasonable washes and polishes from £6 on a conveyer belt style system. They are both always packed and both have pretty small premises and I'm betting low wage bills. Now I'm no rocket scientist but I'd think its gotta be difficult to compete against this for the lower end of your market.

 

I don't know you or your business but in order to survive you may end up having to resort to lower quality washes and stuff like that with the occasional top end valet and rebuild on a mobile basis. A side order of ebaying quality products if you can make a decent turnover on them might help but I dunno if it would make enough dosh to warrant your time.

[MichaelG]

Not good. Perhaps its also a downturn in the economy that isn't helping. I know in my household that the first thing that goes out the window when things get tight is having someone else wash my car and out comes the sponge. Further up the quality ladder you get the higher your prices are so the more critical it is that people have money they can justify spending on lifes little luxuries.

 

Something else that probably wont help is the new places that spring up. Down my local high street there are 2 "american style handwashes" staffed by men that cant speak english knocking out very reasonable washes and polishes from £6 on a conveyer belt style system. They are both always packed and both have pretty small premises and I'm betting low wage bills. Now I'm no rocket scientist but I'd think its gotta be difficult to compete against this for the lower end of your market.

 

I don't know you or your business but in order to survive you may end up having to resort to lower quality washes and stuff like that with the occasional top end valet and rebuild on a mobile basis. A side order of ebaying quality products if you can make a decent turnover on them might help but I dunno if it would make enough dosh to warrant your time.

 

Much the same up here mate, too many people springing up here and thinking they can do the job with crappy products and a handful of illegal immigrants working for £2 an hour

 

I am looking into keeping the sales of valeting products going, that should keep part of my time occupied and although a small profit, its something.

 

After all, after tomorrow i will have erm.....plenty of free time lol !!