Living Social = Living Nightmare

Flash Gordon

Flash Gordon

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In my continuing quest to bring you the latest information on "How to make money in Detailing",today I thought I would Shake-it-Up a bit

Todays lesson is on "How "NOT" to make money in Detailing"

It seems there is a member on another forum who sold some 600 of these Living Nightmare deals and now everyone is calling at once

Now he/she will end up with 590 pissed off ppl who will never return and will be talking junk to anyone who will listen


Hope this article proves useful to some


Flash




 
slickooz said:
Time to hire 100 people and bang them out.
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I see no other option really, and considering your only be paid a portion of your regular rate, thats going to hurt too

Not to mention your regulars you'll have to put on hold for 6 months

BobbyG said:
Words of Wisdom to learn by....:props:
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Thank You BobbyG :dblthumb2:

Ted S. said:
Must have missed it.
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It was a thread over at AutopiaForums yesterday. I tried to find it, but not being a member of that forum doesn't allow me that access. I don't think anyone answered the thread

There has to be a better way to approach this Social Nightmare thing and make it profitable............ :idea:

I have a few ideas if anyone is intrested? :coolgleam:
 
Perhaps it was a bit ambitious to sell 600 coupons. This smells of bad planning to me.
 
I agree with the Autopia thread that there is NO way 600 are sold. Or at least I would hope not.

I would NEVER want to wash a car again after that :)
 
NoleFan said:
Mobile Appointments?

:buffing:
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Thanks! I see he had a few responses and came clean that he hasn't actually sold that many

LegacyGT said:
Perhaps it was a bit ambitious to sell 600 coupons. This smells of bad planning to me.
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I would say so Bill

So I guess you can put your own limit as to how many you will accept?

NoleFan said:
I agree with the Autopia thread that there is NO way 600 are sold. Or at least I would hope not.

I would NEVER want to wash a car again after that :)
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600 is plausible if you live in an area of 1, 2 or 3 million ppl I would think

Wonder exactly what it is this guy is offering? The term Detailing can be used with a wide brush
 
Those kinds of things have one goal... To make money off other people's hard work. I don't want even one person dissatisfied. Once that happens .. You're done. Hope that guy didnt have a lot of money invested. There is one cruel reality with a business that gets you customers...you better be able to BOTH deliver the goods and make a profit ...or your name and wallet will be next to worthless.
 
I have never been a fan of these sites (Living Social, Groupon etc). First of all you have to discount your service, usually by at least 40-50%, so right off the bat your $100 service is only selling for $50. then on top of that the site takes a percentage (40-50%) so in reality you are doing the job for 1/4 of the price. I'm sorry, but for a service job that doesn't make much sense to me at all. People will talk about upsells and so on, but you can't count on them, and thinking you MIGHT get upsells doesn't pay the bills last time I checked. Here is some quick math:

Let’s say you are selling a $100 wash and wax for $50, so you are actually getting $25 after all the fees. You are going to make a total of $15000.00. That sounds awesome at first, however.... If you work 6 days a week you can knock out 2-3 a day (you're not doing more and doing them right) you are talking about taking 200-300 days to finish, that’s almost a year, and doesn't even take into account paying for supplies, electricity, water, rent, or helpers if you have any. So in essence you are taking a year of work and only making $15000 minus expenses, which comes out to about $7.5 an hour on the high side. Doesn't make much sense to me.

On the other hand if you are a high volume shop you would make the same amount of money, but you would have to pay helpers to get them all done. It would take far less time, but you would be left with far less profit after it’s all said and done. All in all I think that those sites are great for the customer, and great for a company that sells a product, but for a service like detailing, I just don’t think it makes sense.

Now, if you scale it back a bunch to say 25-50 units, it can be a good way to get customers in the door. However, I have looked into both of the most popular sites, and in my area they would not allow me to set a deal for less than 500 units. It just isn’t worth it.
 
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Wow, that would be taking a big hit. It would be better just for the customer and detailer to run an ad in the local paper with some sort of discount taking out the middle man. Living Social has to be making a fortune!
 
silverfox said:
Those kinds of things have one goal... To make money off other people's hard work. I don't want even one person dissatisfied. Once that happens .. You're done. Hope that guy didnt have a lot of money invested. There is one cruel reality with a business that gets you customers...you better be able to BOTH deliver the goods and make a profit ...or your name and wallet will be next to worthless.
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:iagree: John

Flannigan said:
I have never been a fan of these sites (Living Social, Groupon etc). First of all you have to discount your service, usually by at least 40-50%, so right off the bat your $100 service is only selling for $50. then on top of that the site takes a percentage (40-50%) so in reality you are doing the job for 1/4 of the price. I'm sorry, but for a service job that doesn't make much sense to me at all. People will talk about upsells and so on, but you can't count on them, and thinking you MIGHT get upsells doesn't pay the bills last time I checked. Here is some quick math:

Let’s say you are selling a $100 wash and wax for $50, so you are actually getting $25 after all the fees. You are going to make a total of $15000.00. That sounds awesome at first, however.... If you work 6 days a week you can knock out 2-3 a day (you're not doing more and doing them right) you are talking about taking 200-300 days to finish, that’s almost a year, and doesn't even take into account paying for supplies, electricity, water, rent, or helpers if you have any. So in essence you are taking a year of work and only making $15000 minus expenses, which comes out to about $7.5 an hour on the high side. Doesn't make much sense to me.

On the other hand if you are a high volume shop you would make the same amount of money, but you would have to pay helpers to get them all done. It would take far less time, but you would be left with far less profit after it’s all said and done. All in all I think that those sites are great for the customer, and great for a company that sells a product, but for a service like detailing, I just don’t think it makes sense.

Now, if you scale it back a bunch to say $25-50, it can be a good way to get customers in the door. However, I have looked into both of the most popular sites, and in my area they would not allow me to set a deal for less than 500 units. It just isn’t worth it.
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Alot of good points were made here Flannigan ^

If I were to delve into a venture like this Social Madness, I would do a couple things to test the waters

1) If I were normally charging $100 for a service, to them that services "retail" value would be between $185-$210. At that point you could take a 50% hit and it would have no effect

2) I would limit the amount of deals to 50-100

3) I would start the deal with something like a headlight restoration. $150 retail could bring you $75 quick dollars. At that point you upsell



If you have a website, I think the additional traffic would be beneficial as well
 
Flash Gordon said:
:iagree: John



Alot of good points were made here Flannigan ^

If I were to delve into a venture like this Social Madness, I would do a couple things to test the waters

1) If I were normally charging $100 for a service, to them that services "retail" value would be between $185-$210. At that point you could take a 50% hit and it would have no effect

2) I would limit the amount of deals to 50-100

3) I would start the deal with something like a headlight restoration. $150 retail could bring you $75 quick dollars. At that point you upsell



If you have a website, I think the additional traffic would be beneficial as well
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Thanks Flash. I agree the website traffic would be good.

On the "deal" though, it's not just the initial 50% you lose on the deal. You also lose another percentage for the sites fee. so your $75 profit for the headlight resto quickly drops to about $40-50. Thats not bad money for a headlight resto if you get 100 of them, as long as you have the ability to get them all done and keep the customers happy. You still have to deduct supplies and taxes too.
 
Flannigan said:
Thanks Flash. I agree the website traffic would be good.

On the "deal" though, it's not just the initial 50% you lose on the deal. You also lose another percentage for the sites fee. so your $75 profit for the headlight resto quickly drops to about $40-50. Thats not bad money for a headlight resto if you get 100 of them, as long as you have the ability to get them all done and keep the customers happy. You still have to deduct supplies and taxes too.
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How about we increase the retail value to $500 :idea:

Just think, if you sold 100 of them and only cleared $200 a piece, thats $2,000,000 in a month :coolgleam:
 
Your better off working at the local carwash for $7.00hr + tips.
 
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