majordetail
New member
Yea. I am definitely into the detailing 100%. No other services offered.
Opening in a week, can't wait!
- Thread starter majordetail
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majordetail
New member
Hey Scott, what are your thoughts on BOCAR? My brother in law is a manager at Strickland's in Stratford and recommended BOCAR as a supplier...
safetyman2010
New member
majordetail said:
Don't do any business with him. Used Car Brite for 90% of my chemicals since 1996 and won't switch. Bocar/Auto Valet etc are bathtubbers in my opinion
WAS
Driven
ShineShop said:
The capital needed to start a fixed shop is quite large, and I think a lot of people believe they will 100% full time booked within a few weeks. Yeah, good luck with that. It takes months and months if not years to build up a solid, reliable base and have your brand recognized. If a fixed location shop can pay 100% of it's own bills (let alone create a profit) within the first 6 months, I'm impressed.
ShineShop said:
Bathtubbers, hahahah, I have to start using that one. What's your opinion on Detail King ? I use DK for all the bulk items, like APC, vinyl dressing, and Tornador supplies. I've looked into Car Brite (that's PRO Car Beauty, yes ?) but the costs were just astronomical.
safetyman2010
New member
WAS said:
In Ontario if you have 2 minimum wage employees working 40 hours a week your monthly cost for labour alone is approx $4480 alone + rent/heat/hydro/phone/insurance etc... which is exactly why so many guys here try and do this (illegally) from home or go mobile to avoid all the fixed costs. If you aren't producing right away it's pretty easy to dig a deep hole that you just literally can't dig out of and I would say 90% of the guys go bust in 3-6 months if it's a standalone business and for however long a business that adds detailing is willing to subsidize it from their main business. The best are the franchises that are popping up now and on top of everything else they have to pay a royalty to boot. Detailing would literally be the last business I would consider opening if I had to start over simply due to the low margins and high costs.
WAS said:
I have heard of Detail King - not sure if I ever met him at any of the conventions but I haven't ever bought anything from him. Car Brite is owned by Valvoline now and is a different line than the PRO stuff. Last thing I look at is price when buying products - quality/dilution/customer service are all more important than saving a tiny amount of money - it really adds up to almost nothing in the grand scheme of things. For instance - we had a guy in here once bragging about how he could beat Car Brite's price on a drum of all purpose by $75 a drum. So I looked at the product at a dealer I work with and you had to use twice as much product to get the same product strength as the product I was using and I didn't think it worked all that well. So if I only looked at the initial price I would have saved $75 a drum but had to buy twice as much of it. One of the oldest tricks in the business with these small time chemical guys. Or you buy the first batch of product and it's great and over time it gets more and more watered down. We bought tire dressing from a guy once back in the 90's and it literally evaporated off the tire within a couple of hours :doh:
Anyways, we're hijacking this guy's thread so I'm all done here.