Doing headlight restoration at Walmart

Calendyr

Calendyr

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Someone posted about doing this a few days ago and for some reason I just can't find his post anywhere... not even with the search engine.

So I will repeat my question because I am REALLY interested on getting the lowdown on this... hope that person can answer these for me (and others)

1. How do you get people to find you in the parking lot? Did you have a sign of some sort?

2. What did you do for electricity? You mentionned in your post you were using Cordless drills. I have one too from Black&Decker and I love the thing. On the other hand, battery life is not that great in my experience.... how long can you do restoration with one charge and how do you re-charge when it dies... I have no idea how long it takes to charge the battery but I am thinking hours, not minutes here.

3. From what I understood in your original post, you took a day to put business cards on cars then when people called you asked them to meet you at the Walmart on the same day the following week (Saturday if I remember correctly). How did the second day go? Did people all arrive at the same time? Did they mind waiting if you were doing an other correction? Can you explain your process for dealing with the customers?

4. You mentionned you did not sand nor seal. Do you think people would pay for that service or did they seems hesitant about the price at 30$. So for example, do you think if I charged 40$ for a complete job with sanding and sealing that it would be a dealbreaker?

Really hope you answer these questions, I think you had a great idea to advertise this way and I really want to do it friday (can't during the week-end because of my full time job). I just need to find a way to get cards printed quickly for the "I can fix your headlight" portion. I will include my regular business card along with that.
 
Having worked for Wal*Mart for many years I do not suggest doing this. They get very upset with solicitors. Especially if their tire center offers this service. Just my 2 cents.
 
Meh. Here is Montréal Walmarts do not have car centers. They are just a combination of large department store and supermarket.

What's the worst that can happen anyway, they will ask me to leave.
 
Calendyr said:
What's the worst that can happen anyway, they will ask me to leave.
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^Call police - try to cause trouble for practicing business without proper licensing or zoning or whatever they can come up with. You never know what might happen if you catch the wrong manager or police officer on the wrong day.

Doesn't sound like a worthwhile risk unless you have consent beforehand.
 
The thread you are thinking of was on another forum. I agree with the other posters here, it's not a good idea. If you want to just put business cards on people's cars (targeted for headlight correction), you might get away with that, but doing the work in the Wal-Mart lot is going to get you into trouble. Consider the source in that thread, that guy used to go into the houses he was detailing cars at and take pictures of people's bedrooms and post them on the internet...he don't have a lot of sense.
 
Setec Astronomy said:
that guy used to go into the houses he was detailing cars at and take pictures of people's bedrooms and post them on the internet...he don't have a lot of sense.
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He should have been dragged and beaten senseless.
 
Setec Astronomy said:
that guy used to go into the houses he was detailing cars at and take pictures of people's bedrooms and post them on the internet...he don't have a lot of sense.
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Wow!! Really? I wonder what drives a person to do something so stupid and disrespectful? :wow: :dunno:
 
He was young and dumb then...I guess he's still, well, I wouldn't be doing corrections in the Wal-Mart parking lot.

It wouldn't have been so bad if the guy's bedroom wasn't a mess. He claimed afterward to have permission to post all those pictures. It was "look at this rich guy's lake house that I got to detail at! and he left me alone while I was doing it and said I could go in the house etc. and I took all these pictures" including the unmade bed. Then he boasted about how much he got paid, etc. Anyway.
 
Calendyr said:
Someone posted about doing this a few days ago and for some reason I just can't find his post anywhere... not even with the search engine.

So I will repeat my question because I am REALLY interested on getting the lowdown on this... hope that person can answer these for me (and others)

1. How do you get people to find you in the parking lot? Did you have a sign of some sort?

2. What did you do for electricity? You mentionned in your post you were using Cordless drills. I have one too from Black&Decker and I love the thing. On the other hand, battery life is not that great in my experience.... how long can you do restoration with one charge and how do you re-charge when it dies... I have no idea how long it takes to charge the battery but I am thinking hours, not minutes here.

3. From what I understood in your original post, you took a day to put business cards on cars then when people called you asked them to meet you at the Walmart on the same day the following week (Saturday if I remember correctly). How did the second day go? Did people all arrive at the same time? Did they mind waiting if you were doing an other correction? Can you explain your process for dealing with the customers?

4. You mentionned you did not sand nor seal. Do you think people would pay for that service or did they seems hesitant about the price at 30$. So for example, do you think if I charged 40$ for a complete job with sanding and sealing that it would be a dealbreaker?

Really hope you answer these questions, I think you had a great idea to advertise this way and I really want to do it friday (can't during the week-end because of my full time job). I just need to find a way to get cards printed quickly for the "I can fix your headlight" portion. I will include my regular business card along with that.
Click to expand...

Calendyr said:
Meh. Here is Montréal Walmarts do not have car centers. They are just a combination of large department store and supermarket.

What's the worst that can happen anyway, they will ask me to leave.
Click to expand...

Wow talk about a shady business. Wouldn't be surprised if you're not even properly licensed as a business. Here in my city if they catch you doing this it's a $100 fine for your first offense. $500 for second, $1,000 for third.
 
From a legal and liability standpoint, I don't think that Walmart would allow an unlicensed, un-insured (or under-insured) business to prosper on their grounds without wanting a substantial part of the action.

I am sure they would feel entitled to a large chunk of change because you are getting your work through the traffic they generate, and using the parking they created on real estate they worked to zone (and jump through all the red tape to get etc...).

If you want to do something of that sort I would tell you that you would have a better chance talking to a private owner (like a carwash) rather than a big corporate entity. Better chance to have access to electricity etc... and you are dealing with the right clientele

In either case, be ready to "spread the wealth"
 
On a different note.... how are you going to substantiate a "high end" auto detailing business doing work out of a Walmart parking lot?!
 
Ya I am just trying to find a way to get the ball Rolling. I have done all sorts of advertisement and nothing is working. So I don't care if it's high end, low end, or what ever... I just want clients at this point.

Don't know the guy you are talking about, just saw his post. You mention it was on an other forum... only other forum I have visited latelly was Autopia but I can't recall if the post was there, I have read maybe a total of 5 posts on their forum... it's just dead.
 
Calendyr good luck and good for you to have the ambition. :xyxthumbs:

I went to go put gas in my car a few months ago. I saw that they had headlight restoration on the side. So I went over there and started a conversation out of curiosity. We were talking and I guess what I talked about made him ask me. "You know how to do this?" I said yeah and showed him some of my pictures.

He then asked me if I wanted to go work for them. We didn't get into specifics about money. I said "no thank you, I can't because of school." He said no problem. So I just said thank you and went on with my day.

Not saying do this, but body shops at times are looking for Detailers.

My manager uncle and estimator uncle told my cousin that at his skill level. He could go wok for a body shop and get $15 an hour (minimum)

He preps cars, does Bondo, wet sands repaints, takes off and puts on parts etc..., so you might not be making big bucks, but you could be learning something new, until you get the ball rolling?

Good Luck,

Art
 
You can't work on peoples car at Walmart. I would chill til spring then try to relaunch your business. Trust me, if this Walmart headlight thing seems like a good idea to you then you may need the winter to rewrite your business plan. Read Renny Doyles book and spend the winter thinking about it.
 
hernandez.art13 said:
Calendyr good luck and good for you to have the ambition. :xyxthumbs:

I went to go put gas in my car a few months ago. I saw that they had headlight restoration on the side. So I went over there and started a conversation out of curiosity. We were talking and I guess what I talked about made him ask me. "You know how to do this?" I said yeah and showed him some of my pictures.

He then asked me if I wanted to go work for them. We didn't get into specifics about money. I said "no thank you, I can't because of school." He said no problem. So I just said thank you and went on with my day.

Not saying do this, but body shops at times are looking for Detailers.

My manager uncle and estimator uncle told my cousin that at his skill level. He could go wok for a body shop and get $15 an hour (minimum)

He preps cars, does Bondo, wet sands repaints, takes off and puts on parts etc..., so you might not be making big bucks, but you could be learning something new, until you get the ball rolling?

Good Luck,

Art
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I already have a job that pays more than this. So I am not looking for a job. What I want is to start to build a client list so I can get some word of mouth advertising. I think headlight restoration is a good way to do that. Something like 1 car out of 7 needs it to some degree, so there is a huge potential. Once you do that for someone it can lead to other work because when working on their car you can upsell them for polishing and cleaning.
 
How about instead of the Walmart thing make a nice flyer with 3 per page to save printing costs. Then print some off, cut them, and go around to local business park businesses and ask if you can leave some at the front desk. You can "mobile" detail headlights in their parking lots with their permission, the clients don't have to leave their work, and you will get a better client base then a Walmart parking lot. At my work, an oil change service comes in and changes peoples oil in the parking lot and people LOVE it.
 
WRX02227 said:
How about instead of the Walmart thing make a nice flyer with 3 per page to save printing costs. Then print some off, cut them, and go around to local business park businesses and ask if you can leave some at the front desk. You can "mobile" detail headlights in their parking lots with their permission, the clients don't have to leave their work, and you will get a better client base then a Walmart parking lot. At my work, an oil change service comes in and changes peoples oil in the parking lot and people LOVE it.
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What's a business park? Sorry language barrier.

But yes, sounds interesting. Same kind of deal, you can do them all in a row without having to move around.
 
Calendyr said:
I already have a job that pays more than this. So I am not looking for a job. What I want is to start to build a client list so I can get some word of mouth advertising. I think headlight restoration is a good way to do that. Something like 1 car out of 7 needs it to some degree, so there is a huge potential. Once you do that for someone it can lead to other work because when working on their car you can upsell them for polishing and cleaning.
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I hear you and that's good. I worked for pennies. However I learned a lot. IMO just keep pursuing it and it'll come to you.

Good Luck on your future detailing endeavors.

Art
 
If it was to provide good training I would think about it. But the fact is, most places will want a job to be rushed and good technique is not gonna be a priority. The last thing I want is to pick up bad habits at a production shop or a car wash. The brain is a funny thing, once you learn to do something the wrong way, it's very hard to change afterwards, especially when it comes to muscle memory.

If I can finish my website's revision I will give a try to adwords. If that doesn't work I will just wait till spring to start again. I missed the summer and that was really bad. I was hoping that winter preparation might be enough to get started but since the phone is not ringing at all no matter what I do, I feel like I just missed my chance for this year ;(
 
Calendyr said:
What's a business park? Sorry language barrier.

But yes, sounds interesting. Same kind of deal, you can do them all in a row without having to move around.
Click to expand...

Like a bunch of office buildings for different companies all in one section.
 
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