Car wash
Traffic visibility, income, vehicle ownership and competitive density, which between them explain most of the outcome.
What it weighs most
Traffic and visibility
30% of the score. The rest is on this page.
01 / The problem
An impulse purchase, which means being on the wrong side of the road can halve the business, and no amount of demographic strength will fix it. Neither will a beautiful tunnel on ground that does not drain.
02 / The decisions it serves
Not a report. A decision somebody has to sign.
Each of these is a question your team already asks, and currently answers with a spreadsheet, a phone call and a fortnight.
Whether the traffic and the side of the road work
Fifteen thousand vehicles a day is the floor. The inbound commute side takes two to three times the impulse stops.
Membership or pay-per-wash
A different business with a different catchment and a different tolerance for competition.
Whether the site can physically hold it
Three quarters of an acre for express, an acre and a half for full service, and drainage that actually works.
Whether the corridor is saturated
Three competitors within three miles is workable. More than five and you are buying somebody else's problem.
03 / What it asks you first
It would rather ask than assume.
The answer changes completely depending on these, so it will not guess at them in order to look fast.
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Express tunnel, full service, or self-service?
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A membership model, or pay-per-wash?
04 / The method, in the open
Here is exactly what it weighs. Argue with it.
Most tools will not show you this, because most tools do not have it. These are the weights the playbook really uses.
Traffic and visibility
And which side of the road
Income and spending
Competition
Site characteristics
Lot size, drainage, utilities
Risk factors
05 / It is willing to say no
It does not hand you numbers. It gives you a verdict.
An assistant that only ever agrees with you is a mirror, not an analyst. This one holds a line, names the thing that kills the deal, and will tell you to walk away from a site you already like.
The thresholds it holds you to
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At least 15,000 vehicles a day. 25,000 is the number you actually want.
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Median household income of $50K, or $75K if you are chasing the premium segment.
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Fewer than three competitors within three miles. More than five is saturated.
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Three quarters of an acre for express, an acre and a half for full service.
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A five-minute trade area, because this is an impulse purchase, not a destination.
What it will not let you ignore
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Flood-prone ground. Drainage is not a detail here, it decides whether the site works at all.
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Water and sewer capacity unverified, which has to happen early rather than late.
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The wrong side of the road. The inbound commute side takes two to three times the impulse stops.
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More than five competitors within three miles.
06 / Why not just ask an AI
A fluent answer and a defensible one are not the same thing.
Every model will answer a location question now, and most of the answers sound right. Ask twice and you get two of them. Ask where the number came from and the room goes quiet.
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Which side of the road you are on is a scored factor, because for this business it is close to the whole answer.
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Drainage, water and sewer capacity are treated as hard gates rather than diligence items, because they decide whether the site works at all.
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It works to a five-minute trade area. Nobody drives across town for a car wash, whatever the demographics of the town.
07 / What it runs on, and what you get
The data underneath
Licensed and authoritative, and named in the output, so the number keeps its source when it travels.
- Esri GeoEnrichment
- Census
- Traffic counts
What you walk out with
A scored assessment against every factor above, on the live map, with the method beside it.
The method it used and the vintage of every number travel with it, so it still holds up when somebody asks you why in six months.
How an answer travels08 / It pairs with
Nobody makes one decision in isolation. Most teams run this alongside two or three of these.
Run Car wash on something you already decided. See if it agrees with you.
The honest test of a method is whether it reaches the conclusion your best analyst already reached, and tells you plainly when it does not.
Twenty minutes, and you can argue with the weights.