Interesting (and clever idea), but immediate concerns come to mind:
1) "Wherever it is located" might be the wrong approach. In a place like NYC, I can assure you that if your car is parked on, say, 74th & Lex, you're not going to get away with doing a car wash there. Same goes for almost every commercial parking lot in the city -- they're not going to let a random guy come in and start washing cars (they don't let owners do that).
2) As others have pointed out, there are environmental considerations here, not for tree-hugger reasons, but for legal ones. Car washes are one of those things that many places are quite strict about technically, but when it's applied for personal use it's overlooked. So in other words, Jonny Law isn't (necessarily) going to give you a ticket for washing your car in your driveway and not recycling the wastewater/solvents/etc., the situation becomes completely different when a commercial enterprise is involved. Similar to my point above, you can bet your bottom dollar that NYPD is going to give any semi-commercial car washer a VERY hard time if he's found washing a car on any public street in Manhattan. Likewise for the local PD of a smaller town if it's a guy washing cars in an office parking lot.
This may be the sort of business that works only in suburbia or places where a Cherry-supplied vendor is literally replacing a guy in his driveway - which, to end on a positive note, is most of the country.
If this service becomes wildly popular, then the cities it operates in are going to have hell of a cleanup job. Yes, they say they use "eco-friendly solutions," which I take to mean biodegradable soap, but that soap has to degrade before it becomes harmless, which isn't going to happen overnight. (Storm drains on streets usually aren't filtered before their contents are dumped into a nearby creek or ocean.)
One thing I dont understand.... how does one with such a startup find cleaners in each of the cities ? Does it have to market itself to cleaners first, as a sort of middle man?
I love the idea ("Uber for carwashing!") but I have some doubts.
The price point is too low for me to believe they'll do a decent job. There are already mobile car detailers here in Portland, and a good exterior detail costs around $100. That's because the companies are licensed and bonded. If I'm going to go cheap on a car wash, I'll do a $6 drive-through special at Washman on my way to the grocery store.
Not knowing the coverage area before signing up is a problem for me as well. My email address and phone number are private - I'm not giving them up until a company gives me something in return.
It's clearly not a detail. I'd guess the quality will be a little better than a $5-10 wash from a machine- a little more expensive because of the "we come to your car", and also because they cannot bring along the machinery and water recyclers that allow $3 washes.
If they are willing to break out the mitts and buckets of soapy water though, you could have a real nice wash there. Wash != detail, but leaps and bounds ahead of a machine. This is not outside the realm of possibility; I remember my local hand wash place back in the Valley was about $20.
They need to define what's in a wash. A detail usually involves a bit more than a basic "wash", if that is in fact all they are offering. Maybe their MVP?
A hand wash at two places near me are $29 and $31. I always seem to show up when there is a ~30 minute wait. If someone can hand wash my car for the same price with no wait while I'm in the office - I'm in. I'm going to try this next week.
The places near me are $17 and $18 for the basic wash package (hand wash & dry + vacuum + dust + tire shine). Interior dressings will bring it up to about your price, and opting for a wax will probably make it ~$45-50.
The shortest time it's taken is about 15 minutes, and the most is about 45 minutes for the wash + wax, but I try to avoid peak times.
I would do it myself but my apartment complex is rather strict on car stuff.
There could be a previously uncovered niche for washing company-owned cars. Often, employees are sent out to wash the boss's car - which is not exactly cheap, considering what THAT costs.
Yes, please come to NY. I would use this regularly.
Also, more insight regarding the materials your service utilizes (ie soaps, brushes, mits, wax, compound - if any, etc) would be great. If this is on the site already, I apologize, I did not register nor did I really dig around (Maybe I wanted to know a bit more to justify my time spent registering).
People dish out serious amounts to pamper their automobiles. Some take this very seriously and can be critical of the process.
Once established, there is plenty of room to both deepen and widen the product offering here - premium services: compound treatment for swirl marks, waxing, 3m clear bra, paintless dent removal, and so on.
I'm assuming you may be trying to create a labor network of sorts and started with basic car washes. Either way, I believe there is a market here, more details on the execution would be great.
*Provided these are hand washes and you're targeting a middle-upper class market, the price point is actually perfect. In my area (NY) I pay ~$30 for a hand wash, and I have to bring it in. I will not bring my car to a regular car wash, even so called "brushless" as they are terrible for your paint. If you're targeting the general public, it may be a bit high.
Given the whole, "we come to you", makes me think of washing the car in the office parking lot, which could indicate a White Collar demographic. I also see homes, but personally I'd just do it myself if I had a house and driveway.
One more question, how do you handle water at an office building?
"One more question, how do you handle water at an office building?"
Sounds like they bring it with them.
> You fill up the portable sprayer before you leave in the morning. It holds 5-gallons of water. It's battery powered so you don't need plug in either!
Park anywhere, check in online, and we'll wash your car right where you left it.
I like the idea, but I wonder why most US service owners seem to assume that all their website visitors are from the US. I tried looking in the "Help" and "Terms" sections, but after ~3 minutes of searching I can't confirm that the service is available only within the US... I'm pretty sure it is, but would have liked to know without having to read all the fine print, especially since it says "park anywhere".
More than that. The US is a really really big place and I highly doubt they really cover all of it. Apparently they're based in San Francisco.
Orbitz is claiming $830 to get them to the nearest airport. Add shipping their supplies and actually getting them to me. I'm sort-of tempted to give them my rural South Carolina address and see what happens.
I just hope their system doesn't automatically charge credit cards, or they may have some refunding to do after being featured here for a day.
Cherry.com washed my car for free 3 months ago, and I didn't even ask them to. They did a great job, really, it was a excellent car wash. I intend to use them in the future.
If you pick a car that is dusty / muddy, you can be pretty sure that the owner is not overly fussy about their car, and hence quite likely to have a positive reaction to a free wash. The probability that someone with an obviously dirty car getting actively upset about an unsolicited wash would seem to be sufficiently low to justify the risk, I would have thought.
Equally though, someone who has a dusty/muddy car (esp in a city rather than rural area) probably values a car wash less than someone who actually has their car washed every week so their car looks relatively clean.
I keep my TT looking clean because I care a lot about the car and so have it washed every week. I'm probably the target customer for a service like this. I'd also be pissed, as I said above, if someone unsolicited washed my car.
I would definitely be very happy if I walked outside and found that my van was cleaned up, even without my knowledge.
The whole "leave your car unlocked so we can clean the interior" thing scares me a bit, though. The audio system in my van is worth $1k+ and it could be easily removed in the time it takes to do a car wash. :I
I was really shocked, I went out and looked at my car multiple times because I thought I must be imagining it. I have no idea if they did it intentionally as a marketing ploy, or if it was like eps's Ferrari comment and someone thought it would be funny to book them to wash my car.
If my car was new and I was still babying it, yeah I might be pissed at first. But the job they did was better than most of the $30-$40 washes I've had, like they actually did a good job cleaning the wheels. And my car was filthy, ever since I moved to SF I stopped washing my car regularly (too much of a hassle and I only drive it once every 2 weeks anyway).
It's also impossible to determine which areas they cover after signing up for an account. I've gone through the process right up to the credit card form and there's no indication that any less than the entire US is covered. There's no information about coverage on their Zendesk either.
A November article about the startup's launch mentions 20 washers hired in San Francisco. The fact that the website lets me order (and presumably pay) a car wash in Pennsylvania is strange. Why have a state dropdown if you only serve one state?
I just ran through the same process, including putting in a credit card number and all kinds of personal information. At the end, all I was told was
"We're Closed
We’re currently closed for business. Our normal hours of operation are from 9:00am to 5:00pm, 7 days a week. See our how it works section to learn more about Cherry."
Presumably, this is because they're not in my time zone, but it's within operating hours here. I hope these guys are successful and wind up with a nationwide business someday, but if you run a local service and don't disclose that before taking on reams of personal data (including payment info), that's not "customer validation", it's a breach of trust.
Not that "tip's" is a valid abbreviation for "tip is," anyhow.
EDIT: Sorry. Don't know what I was thinking. I will refrain from deleting this comment so as to not leave future readers wondering about replies, but I would appreciate if it's not up- or down-voted any longer.
"Just $29 per wash, tip is included" isn't great wording, certainly, but is there anything wrong with saying "tip's"?
I mean, certainly it's not formal, but then neither are pretty much all contractions in English. "Your tip's included in the bill" would sound fine, no?
Well yeah, that;s what I meant about it not being great either way - I was just disagreeing with parent comment about "tip's" not being a valid contraction.
"tip's" leaped out at me too - was just going to bitch about it here. I understand the "tip is" contraction. But it still sounds weird, still sounds like a plural. Un-contracted it would read "Just $29 per wash, tip is included". If that read "Just $29 per wash, THE tip is included" or "Just $29 per wash, THE tip's included" it wouldn't have made me cringe.
While there is a claim in there about ecofriendly solvents and methods being used, I am somewhat skeptical and concerned about the potential ecological damage and waste of water.
At least in the state where I live, there are regulations that require car wash locations to recycle the runoff water. I don't see how this would be possible with this model.
> At least in the state where I live, there are regulations that require car wash locations to recycle the runoff water. I don't see how this would be possible with this model.
I'm curious too. In the process of looking for relevant information (which I haven't found yet), I see that each washer Cherry contracts with in California will have to pay for a $250 per year car washer license. They'll have to do a pretty large number of washes before they start making any money.
> You fill up the portable sprayer before you leave in the morning. It holds 5-gallons of water. It's battery powered so you don't need plug in either!
2 comments on usability if the site owner is reading this.
1) On the payment screen you have Paypal has an option but I can't actually click on it to allow the paypal option. I'm using the newest version of Chrome.
2) I went through the whole registration with credit card details and everything and I got an error message back saying "We're closed" and to come back 9-5pm. It would be much easier for me and probably for you just to take down all my information and process it when you're open or let me pre-pay for a wash or something. It's a little frustrating that I will have to do that all over again.
I know at least two "startups" doing this per city, in Brazil. Except you don't need a smartphone to call them... :-)
It's amazing how the obvious in some countries is, sometimes, a novelty in others. Another example: I found out a couple of months ago that, in Chile, there's simply NO ONE offering lockers on beaches. Meaning you have to drive to the place and leave your stuff in the car, or simply not take a wallet/cellphone/etc when you're out to surf...
It uses a sort of mobile water "pump" - a lot faster and more economical than hand + towel. But I suppose they use something similar (if not the same piece of equipment) there
From Cherry's zendesk entries, it sounds like they do the same thing -- each washer is provided a battery powered sprayer that holds 5 gallons of water and a battery powered vacuum for interiors.
they're quite common in brazil and spain (on the most touristic / surf beaches) - some times operated by companies, other times by the city hall itself
I'm guessing you aren't talking about Rio. I live in the Zona Sul and haven't come across lockers on the beach (though I had the idea literally a few days ago). If they do exist here, whereabouts can I see them?
Funny, but in countries like India, it is fairly common to have a guy come in and wash your car every morning. Put another way: a subscription service for car wash. In countries like India, it is inexpensive enough and there is enough pollution to call for a daily car wash.
In the US, I can see my Dad signing up for a weekly car wash at our suburb home.
Not as funny as you might think -- if you own a car in India, you're probably upper class. In India, lots of paid inane chores are common, like carrying one's luggage from the taxi to the airport, even if it's a small backpack.
Aside from kahawe's excellent comment, one doesn't necessarily need figures here. Can't I be a primary source for this? I think anyone who has visited india/china can probably tell you that car owners are definitely upper class.
This also holds true across other Asian countries - car ownership is common only in upper-middle class and really rich families; and for very rich Chinese families the really expensive part is the license plate and not the car... no 4s and the more 8s and 9s, the more expensive the plate.
Not only do they not provide enough information, the information they do provide is contradictory...
The homepage says:
We believe our customers should use Cherry 100%
worry-free. So, we’re introducing the Cherry Guarantee:
Accidents happen. But when you use Cherry, we’re
accountable for those accidents, not you. We cover
any scratch or ding and replace anything broken in
or stolen from your car.
But the terms say:
THE COMPANY OFFERS INFORMATION AND A METHOD TO OBTAIN
SUCH THIRD PARTY CARWASH SERVICES, BUT DOES NOT AND
DOES NOT INTEND TO PROVIDE CARWASH SERVICES OR ACT
IN ANY WAY AS A CARWASH PROVIDER, AND HAS NO
RESPONSIBILITY OR LIABILITY FOR ANY CARWASH
SERVICES PROVIDED TO YOU BY SUCH THIRD PARTIES.
That said this would be a huge deal in Los Angeles, where hoses are in short supply, street parked cars are in abundance, and the dry air and smog leaves a visible layer of dirt on your car within a week of a wash.
What happens if someone claims cherry scratched or left a ding in their car when they didn't. Couldn't someone pay $29 for a wash just to get something fixed.
I had no idea this was a tech start-up! Tried their d/t SF location twice. Both times they managed to get the order completely wrong even though I was the only customer there. The sandwich was decent though
This place is actually pretty legit. They've got a location in the Stanford Shopping center in Palo Alto, and its rather impressive. I'm sure the founder is exaggerating the "innovation" in his descriptions, but who says someone can't start a restaurant chain?
What's new apart from the web front end? I thought every city has had businesses like this for years. Here in Scotland, we have a number of 'Waterless' car cleaning services who will come to your home of place of work.
Having a web front-end makes it much easier to raise VC money in the Valley.
Related, regarding Uber: "It always surprises me how easy it is to wrap an existing product in a smartphone and persuade young people that it's something new. Manhattan bankers and lawyers have been taking black cars home from those perilous downtown dinners for decades, a necessity since the city has fewer yellow cabs today than in 1937 and important men in suits can't ride the subway after 8:00. I guess the current batch of clueless nouveau riche yuppies was terrified by the prospect of calling for a car and is very excited that they can now text for one." - from http://felixsalmon.tumblr.com/post/15253035246/it-always-sur...
A useful service could be N washes per year with a minimum interval. The user chooses N. Out of this a fraction would be "on-demand". The others would be optimized for availability of resources like manpower and suitable places where there is no objection to washing. For Eg. the user can indicate some travel patterns which can help identify optimal schedules. This approach will enable the user to have a generally clean car and summon a cleanup when there is a special occasion. Such a subscription service would charge lesser per wash.
I wonder if their model is to franchise out the cleaning to local companies/people, since having 1000s of staff around the country would seem to be impractical for a startup.
> Washers apply to Cherry through our site here, we then select a handful of applicants and setup phone calls to vet the washers. If they pass, we send them all the equipment they need to get started and start pushing them your carwash requests in real time.
This is a really good idea to create much needed employment opportunities. I know they won't the best jobs available but it's something people needing a job would be happy to have. I am sure there are plenty of people that lost their jobs in the last 4 years and would jump at the chance to work for this company.
Best luck Cherry. I won't be using this service, since I don't wash my car until it rains.
1. Can you request a car wash for a car you don't own? If so, how can you prevent car owners who don't want the service handling their care washed as a gift (or prank)? If not, how does a user of the service prove ownership of a car?
2. Does the service require cars to be parked in a relatively unoccupied area so as to minimize impact on other cars and/or pedestrians in the area?
I totally had this idea for a business in Austin. I was thinking about $20 for a basic car wash. Other tiers would be $30-$40. Washers would qualify to do the other car wash tiers based on their previous performance and reviews. Every washer would start out at tier one and have to earn the ability to wash in tiers above it. Hope it works out for Cherry!
They're not independent cleaners though, they're cleaners that applied to work for Cherry, went through training, and were sent portable sprayers and vacuums to do the cleaning with. There's a November article saying they hired 20 cleaners in SF.
Cherry is the carwash that comes to you. Park anywhere, check in online, and we'll wash your car right where you left it. Just $29 per wash, tip's included.
Do they show you the forecast for the next week before you schedule? "There's a 95% chance it will rain tomorrow. Are you sure you want to schedule a wash today?"
All I can say is if your startup doesn't work out (which I hope it does, I love the idea) you could probably get a mint for the cherry.com domain name.
Regarding the name - its too close to the Chinese car manufacturer 'Chery' for my liking. If they expand into the USA (as they have recently into other countries) it may cause confusion....
1) "Wherever it is located" might be the wrong approach. In a place like NYC, I can assure you that if your car is parked on, say, 74th & Lex, you're not going to get away with doing a car wash there. Same goes for almost every commercial parking lot in the city -- they're not going to let a random guy come in and start washing cars (they don't let owners do that).
2) As others have pointed out, there are environmental considerations here, not for tree-hugger reasons, but for legal ones. Car washes are one of those things that many places are quite strict about technically, but when it's applied for personal use it's overlooked. So in other words, Jonny Law isn't (necessarily) going to give you a ticket for washing your car in your driveway and not recycling the wastewater/solvents/etc., the situation becomes completely different when a commercial enterprise is involved. Similar to my point above, you can bet your bottom dollar that NYPD is going to give any semi-commercial car washer a VERY hard time if he's found washing a car on any public street in Manhattan. Likewise for the local PD of a smaller town if it's a guy washing cars in an office parking lot.
This may be the sort of business that works only in suburbia or places where a Cherry-supplied vendor is literally replacing a guy in his driveway - which, to end on a positive note, is most of the country.