Car Wash

The Past, Present, and Future of Cashless Marketing Options in the Car Wash Industry

I bought my first car wash in 1989 in Saint Paul Minnesota and then City of Saint Paul decided they were going to tear up the entire length of the main road that my wash was on. I had a brand new wash and traffic through the wash was at an all time low once construction started. I was certain it was going to ruin me if I did not figure out something to drum up more business."

Nearly every car wash operator has read an article or has seen a presentation on the benefits of accepting credit cards and loyalty cards. In fact there are dozens of equipment manufacturers that now offer built-in credit card acceptance and loyalty card programs. Car wash operators in 2007 can't swing a stick at a car wash trade show without hitting the latest cashless acceptance solution for the car wash. But how did cashless acceptance within the car wash industry all start?

The Origin of Cashless Card Systems in the Wash Industry

Eighteen years ago accepting credit cards in the bay was unheard of and loyalty programs were nothing like they are today. The concept of a loyalty program consisted of discounted tokens, token notes, and coupon books. Seventeen years ago the concept of card-based cashless acceptance in the wash bay was only realized and evangelized by one man in the wash industry while the rest of the car wash industry was content selling tokens and coupons. You may remember seeing a guy at the ICA trade show in the early 1990's with a fish tank in his booth that had goldfish and a card reader in the bottom to demonstrate the readers ability to work in "wet conditions". That man with the fish tank was Dan Yarusso and he started a company back in 1990 called WashCard Systems. Based out of his garage in Hugo Minnesota, Dan started his business as a one man show. In an interview with Yarusso I had the opportunity to learn that WashCard was not originally invented to be sold to other car wash operators. In fact it was created out of a necessity to market his own struggling car wash.

Dan recalls, " I bought my first car wash in 1989 in Saint Paul Minnesota and then City of Saint Paul decided they were going to tear up the entire length of the main road that my wash was on. I had a brand new wash and traffic through the wash was at an all time low once construction started. I was certain it was going to ruin me if I did not figure out something to drum up more business."

What was to be a profitable little side business was quickly becoming a huge stress factor for Dan and his family. Dan spent nights and weekends at the wash keeping things in repair and doing whatever he could to keep his customers happy while the road construction in front of his wash dragged on. When away from the wash during the weekdays Dan worked for a company that designed access control technology for security systems. It was with this knowledge of access control technology that gave Dan an idea how to fix a pet peeve of his. Dan hated carrying pockets full of tokens around just so he could wash down his self service bays. After weeks of tinkering he had wired in waterproof access card readers into each of his bays. The readers were wired into programmed control panels in his equipment room that were then wired into the bay timers. By sliding a valid card through the reader it would send a signal to the wash bay and started up the wash bay and it would not turn off again until he would slide the card a second time.