Surface Cleaners too expensive

Was looking at a Whisper Wash 16" Ultraclean…434 dollars.

Was looking at a Honda 21 " Self Propelled bagger lawn mower…399 dollars.

Which of these cost more to manufacture?

Which of these is justifying it’s cost on not what it costs to manufacture vs what one can earn per hour?

What are the part cost differentials in the manufacturing process.

Just saying…If you could make 300 dollars in an hour with a 21"self propelled mower does it merit paying 1500 dollars for it?

What are the profit margins on these?

Stay away from the what you can earn and longevity argument and focus on the cost to manufacture vs retail price profit spread.

You know there is an issue when I can buy a new GX390 for 100 dollars more than a 16 inch Whisper Wash UC marketed as a step down from a Classic.

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Supply and demand is real and this is a perfect example of it.

How many mower do they make and sell each year?

You’re talking 1000 mowers to 1 surface cleaner.

I don’t care what their profit margin is on it. I care what my return with it is.

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That is a weird way to look at it. Kinda the exact opposite way to look at it and stay in business.

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The Ultra(or Eagle, depending on how old they are) is far superior than the whisper classic.

Their profit margin could be 10,000% for all I care… what’s the surface cleaner worth to YOU?

I can’t wrap my caveman brain around this post…

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Not caring what the cost is justifies the point I am making.

Message me your address and I’ll buy you this book. Just go straight to part about supply and demand, equilibrium price. It’ll answer your question. Then throw the book away.

I’m not one for short answers and having a bachelor’s in economics and finance means I’d have to get my money’s worth. This post could get nerdy.

What’s your profit margin on a 1000 sf driveway quoted at 40 cents a sf?

Owned a175 employee business and retired at age 36:…19 yrs ago…Read the TOUs Squid…no need to insult me

I’m not insulting you by any means. I love the For Dummies books. I have a number of them and read them myself. It’s just a baseline explanation of everything. The last one I read was Penny Stocks for Dummies no more than a month ago.

Anyway, with a business background like yours I’m sure you priced things at what the market was saying was on or near the max price at least 66% (middle 2/3rd of the bell curve) of customers were willing to pay, right?

That’s why the surface cleaners are priced as they are.

Higher quality, more expensive surface cleaners are priced in a manner that the end of the bell curve, upper 16.6% or final 1/6th of consumers will purchase it.

Again, I try to be as helpful as I can be here with as many people as possible. What goes around comes around, right? I sincerely did not post that particular book as an insult.

I see a $600(19 inch eagle wash) purchase that lasts 10 years and profits are about 10 times the initial purchase price annually a decent investment. So much so that I have 7 or 8 of them. I didn’t even have to read the dummy book lol. I’ve talked to John at Whisper wash extensively about their products, offered suggestions and been asked for input. I don’t know, but from the products used I would guess their is around $300 in the final product. Barrons, Pressuretek or whoever makes $45 to $50 on the sale so Whisper wash makes a hundred bucks of their product. Not even sure if this answers your question as I can’t follow your line of thought.

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I don’t do driveways. It costs me $2.40 a minute based on a 40 hour week to break even. Anything over that is profit, more or less. If i did the driveway and made $2.41 a minute I profited. If they made me $30 bucks profit for the 30 minute job and the other crews were making the same I’m making profit and not really caring that they are using surface cleaners that were paid for a decade ago

This is a weird thread. Who cares, buy what you want. Does it really cost BMW 3 times in parts and labor over a Camry. But personally I rather drive a BMW. I happy that Whisper Wash makes a nice profit. Keeps people employed, has great quality and they can pay their taxes. I don’t care if they build the damn thing for $25, it works well and I like it.

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@xlr8tion you seem kinda… what’s the word I’m looking for…cynical
Smile fella☺

I mean, I think I understand the point he is making, which is that there aren’t a whole lot of parts to a surface cleaner, like there are in engines. On the surface (pun intended), it seems crazy to pay $800 for a swivel, handle, and some plastic around it.

However, as im sure Mr xlr8tion knows, research and development gets baked into the cost. Sure, it might not take a lot of expensive parts to manufacture now, but it took time, money, and work to get to this point.

Go buy a $200 SC from northern tool, and a whisper wash classic. Use both side by side every day for 6 months. I imagine it wouldn’t take long to figure out the extra cash is worth it, and probably even cheaper in the long run.

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Firstly @ Squidskc…thanks for your kind words and explanation…no foul no harm. In 98, when we were acquired , we did 16 million in gross revenues with a net profit of $640k. That’s the competitive nature of Home Health Care- a 24/7/365 business.

So I come from a high volume low profit margin background where 4 to 6 per cent profitability was the norm unless you were screwing the government via Medicare fraud.

So this business is a flip side paradigm as Whisper Wash (I read the David French story) has nine employees and his profit margins are most likely 10 x what mine were.

I am not sure it’s a supply vs demand issue as Mr. French would simply scale up production.

I think it is in the marketing and the fact they make better SCs than the big guys like GP and BE and are trying to stay novel with their products.

It’s just a bit of an initial shock as you have posters coming in heavy handed with how many of these they have and how much money they are pulling down. This business is more lucrative, Pressure Washing, than any other I have seen and that’s fantastic.

What we all have to remember is when we started out. I could easily afford to construct a 30k trailer and recoup my investment in months.

What I am alluding to is Mr. French has a marketing degree from Clemson, knows the TAM, the profit margins of his clients and prices accordingly.

No offense is meant by this post…Just an analysis of his price structure. It is not demand outstripping supply- he would make more. It is a quality product and the human psyche syncs with the notion that if it costs more it must be better. That applies from Windex to Whisper Wash…

P.S. Thanks @Tireshark…that’s my gist of the topic. @Sharpe…not cynical…analytical…10 days in 700 is a lot…10 years out not…Thanks!

Why is the Lil’ Guy 12" 50 dollars more than a 16" Ultraclean…? Does the UC have the Gen 3 swivel? Thanks!

don’t know the answer on price difference other than they probably sell less of them. The last 16" eagle I bought was a couple of years ago but it had the new swivel. The eagle/ultra is far better than the whisper wash, to me, due to the fact you can plug your trigger gun straight into it without have to mess with a ball valve and deal with the built in handle of the whisper wash. Use the 4 nozzle bar and sleeve protectors, add an elbow at the swivel so the pressure of the water hammer keeps it seated on the ground and they are unbeatable.

@Innocentbystander … Thanks for the info!

I definitely will get one of the UCs…I just need to decide whether to get the 16 or 19 as I have a GX390 with a new AR RRV4G/4000psi pump. I know the 19 has a 17" arm so I may be close close to the 4"/gal rule if the AR measures out better than the woeful FNA AAA pump it replaced.

To me the 19 inch is a steal for the extra 50 over the 16…499 vs 445.

Thanks again!

Greg

depends on your needs. 19inch you can get the 4 bar nozzle and your right, it is actually 17. I have both and run them with 8 gpm machines. Only concrete I clean is inside apartment breezeways and occasional sidewalks so the small ones work fine for me.