Expanding Into Commercial Laundry Services
As a vended laundry owner, you outlay a lot of money in store development, permitting, construction and equipment. We can help you make that investment as fruitful as possible. Fully utilize idle equipment and attendants by launching full-service wash/dry/fold. Then, once you’ve got your head around it, consider adding commercial laundry services to your store’s tagline. Become a retail laundry services enterprise.
Our Five Step Approach
The average vended laundry, open 14-15 hours daily, utilizes its equipment just 20-25 percent of the time. The majority of the day is unrealized capacity and opportunity. Get into that unused capacity, offer more customer services and create additional revenue within your business.
A recent Coin Laundry Association survey found that 51 percent of responding laundries offer wash/dry/fold (WDF) services. Of that number, 18 percent provide pickup and delivery. WDF is an added service, revenue stream and profit center. It makes good sense to fully utilize idle equipment and attendants by offering WDF. Do your homework, research WDF best practices, become a CLA member, and then develop attendant training, policies and procedures.
When your WDF business has grown to the point that you are competing with self-service customers for equipment, create a designated area within the store for full-service work. You may need to hire additional attendants and add on-premise washers and dryers. You’ll also require more storage for finished and unfinished product. The next step is to develop pick-up and delivery routes. Start by developing routes close to your laundry. By keeping your routes nearby, it’s simpler to maintain lower pick-up and delivery costs while maximizing profits.
Highly programmable on-premise washers and dryers provide automatic chemical injection and more advanced programmability when compared to self-service equipment. Look for on-premise washers offering multiple baths and rinses; automatic chemical injection; and programmable G-force, mechanical action, water temperatures and cycle times so your laundry can pursue commercial accounts.
Next, consider adding a flatwork ironer to further catapult customer and account opportunity. Your laundry can quickly and automatically iron linens, making your laundry service attractive to clients that were previously unserviceable. Now you can take on clients and provide them with perfectly finished linens.
If you’ve outgrown your designated full-service space, consider outfitting a separate building with everything you need to serve current and future customers. Many vended laundry owners establish, grow, invest and expand. Ultimately, they find themselves managing multiple extremely profitable businesses.
Please contact us today for your free laundry operational analysis!