Cockroach Market in 2023: Solid Growth Is Underway

German cockroaches are keeping the crew at Ransford Pest Control in Shrewsbury, Mass., busy, according to President Maria Richmond — possibly due to a combination of the growing population, sanitation issues and resistance in the region. “We’ve seen an increase over the past several years, and we expect pressure to continue to rise,” Richmond said, adding that her team treats cockroaches primarily in restaurants and triplex residences, which are common in their market. “The cost of hauling trash keeps going up and a lot of custodial positions need to be filled, so trash sits around longer than it should. That harborage is conducive for cockroaches as well as rats.”

Cockroach pressure is strong on the opposite coast, too. Seashore Pest Control President John Etheridge says his Huntington Beach, Calif., market is seeing growing pest populations thanks to unusually high levels of moisture. “Our rainfall has been 267 percent of normal so far this year,” he said. “I expect to see increases for all types of bugs — cockroaches included.”

Richmond and Etheridge aren’t alone. Among the 96 percent of pest control operators who offer cockroach control services, the majority say their cockroach business is steady, if not growing, this year. Most predict their portion of revenue generated by cockroach services to increase (48 percent) or hold steady (47 percent) in the coming year, with only 5 percent expecting a decrease.

In fact, cockroach services have been a steady source of rising revenues for quite some time. Looking over the past five years, a third (34 percent) of PMPs report that cockroaches have become a more significant source of revenue to their companies. Another 49 percent say revenues have held steady. Just 13 percent say that controlling these pernicious pests has become a less significant part of their business.

SELLING THE SERVICE. While treating its peridomestic counterparts can often be relatively straightforward, the domestic German cockroach tends to pose unique challenges at every account. That’s why so many companies bill German cockroaches as a separate service.

“We cover American and smoky brown cockroaches under general pest control, because even though we get a lot of calls for them, they’re easier to manage than German cockroaches,” said Glenn Fordham, owner of Olympic Pest & Termite Control in Hoschton, Ga. “A customer might explain when they call what’s going on with German cockroaches in their home, but honestly, until you get there and take a look, you really don’t know how bad the infestation might be. We set the price once we’ve had the chance to analyze the situation. Then, after we’ve completed the service, we may try to convert the customer to a monthly or quarterly package that will cover them for not only general pest but also cockroach issues that may arise down the road.”

Getting the estimate right is critical to turning a profit on German cockroach work, so many companies shy away from quoting these services over the phone. But if you arm your inside sales team with the right questions and empower your technicians to revise the price once they’ve sized up the infestation in person, selling over the phone can be a successful sales strategy, says David Joles of PURCOR Pest Solutions.

“Before joining PURCOR last year, I worked on the Environmental Pest Service team. We saw a huge spike in cockroach business when we started offering quotes over the phone in 2019,” Joles said. “Our representatives had a basic checklist of questions to ask each customer to verify the level of infestation so they could quote it accurately. If a technician arrived and found it was much worse than what the customer had described, they had the authority to explain to the customer that the price would be higher based on the results of their inspection.”

A PEST FOR ALL SEASONS. Managing cockroaches is year-round work for most PMPs. Depending on location, they might see a bump, particularly in peridomestic species, during the summer months, but 60 percent of respondents to the 2023 PCT survey said they don’t see a seasonal difference in cockroach pressure.

Caleb Bales, business development specialist, American Pest Control, says that northeastern Georgia sees seasonal fluctuations, especially in smoky brown cockroach pressure. “Our cockroach control business has been steady the past several years,” he said. “We primarily treat smoky brown and German, but occasionally see American and Oriental cockroaches. Smoky brown pressure typically picks up in spring, when we start seeing nymphs climbing around, and then, depending on how much moisture the region has, we’ll see them coming out throughout spring and summer. Toward fall, a lot of adults make their way indoors to overwinter.”