Payment Options and Considerations for Today’s Laundromat Owners
This is the second of a two-part feature on payment acceptance options for laundromat owners. You can read Part 1 here.]
Several laundromat operators share their thoughts on the payment methods they offer – or are considering offering – their customers:
Ed Miles
Rocket Laundry
Spartanburg, S.C.
We accept quarters, credit cards and app payment. We use an equipment manufacturer’s app, which can take payment via cash or QR code at the store or via credit. Our credit card readers accept all payment, including Apple Pay.
With quarters now readily accessible, I don’t think we’ll make any changes unless accessibility becomes a problem again. We rarely handle quarters, since half of our business is through credit or the app. For the most part, quarters simple get recirculated.
There is a lot to be said for not having to handle cash as a business, and many customers feel the same way.
Johnny Segal
Soap Box Laundromat
Hoover, Ala.
We accept all credit and debit cards, including Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express. We also accept mobile payment such as Apple Pay and Google Pay. For our pickup-and-delivery service, we accept Venmo payments. We are a card-operated laundry, but we will accept coins in exchange for bills to add value to a customer’s laundry card. Beginning last month, we’ve added a 3.5 percent convenience fee to all transactions.
Jesse Kuhns
Sunshine Laredos Laundromat
Laredo, Texas
Currently, we are a coins-only store, which can be labor-heavy and makes us more susceptible to theft. Another disadvantage of a quarters-only format is the fact that not everyone carries cash these days. As a result, I plan to switch to a payment system that will enable us to accept all forms of payment.
Justin Pike
Ferndale Laundromat
Ferndale, Wash.
Ferndale Laundromat currently has multiple ways to pay – mobile app, coins at the machines, a kiosk for cash-paying customers using the app, or payment with a card or cash at our service counter. Currently, our app adoption rate is 73 percent.
The big advantage of the app is that money is sent to the bank every night from that day, so it means less trips to bank. In addition, I can track and communicate with customers to get them to return. Also, I can track machine usage and pinpoint busy times of day. I keep 100 percent of the float, and I experience less coin loss.
Of course, a disadvantage of the app is that it takes some work to convince customer to give it a try and then to show them how to use it. But, once they are up and running, they will often help other customers get comfortable with it.
Accepting cash at the kiosk for our app users is just another way to get customers to use the app who don’t want to keep a card on file with the app.
Of course, coin acceptance is an important option for those who aren’t willing to conform to new technology – but collecting coins requires time and labor.
Lastly, accepting payment – cash or cards – at our service counter to start machines remotely gives my staff an opportunity for face time with customers and allows our attendants to help them with their laundry needs. It gives customers the option of not having drop coin after coin into a larger machine, and I don’t have to spend money on card readers for each machine. The potential drawback is that my store must be fully attended.
Our payment acceptance plan is working for us. However, I would like someone to offer an affordable all-in-one product – POS for retail, wash-dry-fold, drycleaning, and remote starting of machines.
Alison Grantham
Wash and Fold, LLC
Lexington, S.C.
My business is currently a coins-only operation. However, due to frequent coin jams and the need to collect coins multiple times per week, I’ve recently purchased card readers for my larger washers and dryers to test out this payment option in the coming months. If this technology is accepted by my customers and in high demand, I’ll add readers to all of the machines.
Clint Benton
Tahoe Laundry Center
Zephyr Cove, Nev.
Over the last 17 years, we’ve owned four stores. The first three were coin-operated, and the fourth laundromat was a card store.
I love the fact you can track a card and see what machines it was used on. That helps with regard to customer claims, and I can issue refunds remotely right to the card. Another great feature is being able to see exactly how many bills and denominations are being put into the store’s value add center.
By contrast, the coin laundries were much more labor-intensive.
I’m currently trying to put together a laundromat project in the U.S. Virgin Islands. In this case, I want to go with debit and credit card acceptance only. The recent Clean Show gave me some good leads on processing and financing. If I’m able to complete this small project, I believe I can duplicate it a few times in and around the island.
Frank Sarcia
Port City Laundry
Newburyport, Mass.
We accept cash and credit cards at our wash-dry-fold counter, as well as on about 80 percent of our machines.
The card processing fees really are the only disadvantage. Beyond that, even after two years of having card readers on the machines, customers still tell us how happy they are to be able to use their cards, rather than cash.
I don’t plan to make any changes – unless some card processing company comes out with a system that has 0 percent fees!
Michael Finkelstein
Associated Services Corp.
Danville, Va.
I’ve been slowly converting my laundromat business from coins-only stores to facilities that accept credit and debit cards, mobile payment such as Apple Pay or Google Pay, and quarters.
Currently, about 60 percent of my stores offer a full host of payment acceptance options, while approximately 40 percent of the laundries are still strictly running on quarters.
With higher utility prices come higher vend prices, and that means it takes less washes to fill up my machines’ money boxes. Therefore, offering card acceptance and mobile payment enables my machines to keep turning even when their boxes are full of quarters. That’s a huge benefit for multi-store owners who possibly aren’t able to collect their laundromats as often as single-store proprietors can.
In addition, my payment options help to differentiate my business, because some owners may be card-only and some may accept only coins. By contrast, I like to be like Walmart and McDonald’s – I’ll take your money any way you want to give it to me.
Aprill Ashley
Freedom From Laundry, LLC
Flintstone, Ga.
We currently accept quarters on all of our machines, as well as credit and debit cards on most of them. Customers are comfortable using quarters, but they are a bit of a pain to collect, along with having to refill the change machines. Plus, there is more recordkeeping involved with coins.
I love everything about our card reader system. It produces excellent reports, it’s easy for our customers to use, and it also keeps track of the quarters that are put in the machines.
We plan to add these card readers to the rest of the machines and any new equipment we may purchase, as they give our customers the option of using coins or credit/debit cards.
Matt Zinicola
New Ipswich, N.H.
Currently, my store accepts quarters on every machine – and all of my new washers (70 percent of my laundry equipment) accept payment via the washer manufacturer’s mobile app. I think this has the distinct advantage of being “hardware-less,” with no card swipes to broken or malfunction. And one annual software license fee enables me to accept payment that way.
At the moment, my app adoption rate is approximately 35 percent overall for my new touchscreen machines. I wish I could convert our remaining washers and dryers instantly, but I will continue with a gradual rollout as I retool.
I believe the adoption rate will continue to ratchet up to about 75 percent to 85 percent, and then probably stop there. After all, there will always be some coin-only customers at my laundromat.
I can’t say whether accepting card resulted in greater revenues. But it certainly has made managing revenue easier to track. And there’s less employee loss to worry about.
Frank Thomas
Breezes Laundromat
Roxbury, Mass.
My laundromat is cash only. Cash is king. I also have an ATM and a bill changer in my store, and my customers don’t mind using them.
In my opinion, credit card processing fees are ridiculous. My customers can use their credit or debit cards and other payment types at the ATM. And, with my ATM, I receive the fee.
Steve Burk
McCandless, Pa.
All of my washers and dryers have quarter and dollar coin drops. My store’s bill changer issues dollar coins, not quarters. We kept the quarter drop on the machines for those customers who come in with quarters – which is about 15 percent of them. Meanwhile, our wash-dry-fold service accepts cash and credit cards.
To me, the dollar coin has a huge advantage over quarters – as it requires far fewer coins to be handled, and non-customers won’t come into my store to get quarters from the changer and then leave.
No doubt, having to collect and count coins is time-consuming, as is having to get additional dollar coins from bank (to replace coins that went home in customers’ pockets.
For our drop-off laundry service, our credit card payments incur a 4 percent vendor transaction fee, which is an immediate loss of 4 percent of our revenue. However, customer convenience is paramount, so I consider this payment acceptance to be an advantage.
We’re scheduled to have credit card readers installed on every machine in the store this fall. This will make coin handling much less of a chore, and card acceptance is a feature that my customers have not only asked for but have come through the door expecting – “It’s 2022! Why don’t your machines take cards?”
We will still accept coins after the readers are installed. However, with these new readers, it will reduce our self-service income by 4 percent for each card-related transactions. But, again, the customer convenience, reduced time spent collecting/processing coins, and the known tendency for customers to select more wash modifiers (extra wash, extra rinse, etc.) should offset that 4 percent loss.
Frank Galizia and Daniel Ruggiero
Tamarack Express Laundry Center
Brewster, N.Y.
We currently own two stores. One laundromat is quarters-only. At this location, our customers prefer using coins over other payment methods. The disadvantage is that coins are much more work – with collecting them, machine jams, etc. We may decide to accept credit cards in the future.
At our second store, we accept coins, credit cards and Apple Pay. With card acceptance and mobile pay, our business at this store is much easier to track and there is less work involved. Of course, it’s important to factor in the credit card fees and the cost of the card readers.
Eric Benson
World’s Largest Laundromat
Berwyn, Ill.
At World’s Largest, we accept quarters and all major credit cards. Everyone has access to cash. However, many customers are preferring credit cards more and more for their transactions. We have seen a steady growth in card usage over the years, so now about half of our washer turns are coming from a credit card.
I don’t anticipate any changes going forward. In my opinion, tokens, dollar coins and pre-paid store cards require too much maintenance. We prefer to keep things simple. Everybody has cash and a credit or debit card.
Jeff Mello
Ducky Wash & Dry Laundry
Dublin, Calif.
All of our machines are quarters-only. Everybody understands how a quarter works, and we can keep things simple while keeping enough coins in house to be our own bank. We had no trouble even during the pandemic-induced coin shortage.
Not that there aren’t disadvantages:
- Customers become annoyed when they have to use 30 or 40 coins to start a machine.
- Emptying coin boxes and filling change machines is time-consuming.
- Quarters create wear and tear on the coin drops and change machines, and some of those replacement parts are becoming scarce.
- Safety is a concern with the high visibility of cash.
- One jammed quarter will take an entire machine out of service.
Admittedly, we are slow adopters. Although we’ve thought about card systems for years, we never went in that direction, and in hindsight, I don’t think that was a bad decision. Even in our high-tech demographic, the disadvantages still would have outweighed the advantages.
With that said, going forward we will be switching to quarters and dollar coin tokens. We hope to phase this in slowly by converting one of our three change machines and five of our largest washers – and we’ll add more as we see fit. This will add a sorting chore to our routine, but hopefully it will cut the routine intervals in half. Also, it should offer the benefits of still being a simple process, with less wear and tear and less cash in circulation.
We also plan to add a mobile payment option in the future.
Larry Larsen
Laundromat123.com
Yorba Linda, Calif.
Credit card and proprietary card payment systems are able to keep an eye on silent partners and employee theft, while also providing detailed reports on specific equipment use, income sources and customer preference. They often provide extensive information to those owners who enjoy expanded analysis of their operations
The downside of all of the credit card systems is the initial cost, the failure of components, ongoing software upgrade costs and a reduction in the value of the equipment in resale markets. The cost of converting your used equipment to other people’s vending choice can make used equipment difficult to market. Also, there is a concern that there may not be enough business in the laundromat industry to support all of the companies currently offering systems. Personally, I believe that less than half of the current companies will remain to support these systems in the coming years.
As far as application-based systems, they are less costly to purchase than credit card and proprietary systems, and they expand the range of payment options available to customers. In addition, they have a smaller but similar range of benefits as credit card and proprietary card systems.
The negative aspects of mobile apps include monthly bank fees, limited customer use and increased maintenance costs. Customer use typically is reported as less than 25 percent, and bank issues are frequently cited.
Of course, coins are the senior method of laundromat payment options. All money collected is retained by the store owner. There are no bank fees. Customer understanding of how coin slides and coin drops work is almost universal. And failure rates are extremely low.
Although the use of quarters still dominates all payment methods in this industry, the rise in vend prices has made the use of coins a protracted experience for customers. Some laundry operators have moved toward the acceptance of dollar coins and tokens to ease that burden.
I believe the use of card and app-based systems will grow in new laundromat construction and major remodels. Existing laundromats will continue to grow slowly in their use of apps. And sales of propriety card systems to existing laundromats will be limited.
Over the next 10 years and beyond, the use of cash and coins of any type will diminish throughout all sectors of our society.
Beck Miller
LaundroLab
Charlotte, N.C.
We currently accept quarters; credit/debit cards; and cash via a third-party, app-based digital wallet with QR codes on each machine.
Clearly, cash is harder to scale into multiple locations. It requires additional labor hours to pull, count, audit and deposit – and it’s more susceptible to potential fraud, waste and abuse.
However, all of those negative components are owner-facing. We’ve found that roughly half of our customers across our network prefer to use cash, even with the app-based payment system. The app allows for payments via credit, debit, EBT and cash through a kiosk. Customers are able to start washers without the arduous process of putting 40 or more quarters into larger washers, while also generating loyalty points for free washing and drying.
The customer-facing downside of a digital wallet or loyalty card system is that the customer may have to carry a balance on the card or wallet, rather than using exactly the amount needed. This can potentially hurt customers who are in tighter financial situations. Of course, from an owner’s standpoint, having access to float is beneficial to running the business.
The laundry industry as a whole is lagging behind almost every other industry when it comes to payment platforms. Cash is dying out as the default method of payment, and many businesses are beginning to cease acceptance of cash altogether. We build all of our stores with a hybrid cash + app payment platform currently to ensure that we aren’t excluding any potential customers in the near term, with the goal of moving fully away from cash and to the app-based platform as the industry continues to play catchup and adapt to the times
Bob Frandsen
Maytag Laundry
Rush City, Minn.
We currently utilize a card-based system in three of our nine laundromats. We were scheduled to convert three more stores to a card platform this year, but have been unable to get the equipment needed.
In our three card-based locations, the only way to start a machine is with a credit card or a value card. We accept credit cards at every machine, or customers can purchase value cards with cash or transfer from their credit cards to purchase value cards and use them to start the machines. We accept no coins on any machine in these stores, including the vending machines. Also, customers can access the restroom only with the use of a value card; however, there is no charge to do so.
Customer think less about price when they use cards. Also, we offer a 10 percent bonus to customers who put $20, $40, $60 or $80 on their value cards. And, if a customer has a problem with a machine, we can refund directly to the value card over the phone and start any machine remotely.
It has cost us about $50,000 per location to convert from coins to cards, but we feel it was well worth it. No doubt, the one disadvantage is the credit card fee of 3 percent, especially when about 60 percent of our sales are on credit cards.
Chris Mirisciotta
Canon Coin Laundry
Canonsburg, Pa.
About six or seven years ago, my larger machines were filling up with coins way too fast. So, I installed credit card readers on a portion of the large machines and a number of the dryers, along with a few smaller machines, at all six of our locations. And I’ve been pleased with the performance.
This gave us an advantage in our markets, However, our competitors have begun to follow suit with regard to payment acceptance.
With credit card acceptance, we don’t have to collect coins as often, and we had no issues during the recent coin shortage. Yes, there are processing fees, but our prices easily cover them.
In the future, I’ll be adding readers as I replace older machines. The world is going cashless. My opinion is that any money spent on coin technology is wasted money. Five years from now, you won’t be able to drop a coin into anything – other than an out-of-date laundromat.
Neal Shapiro
WashTime on Fullerton
Chicago
We have a laundry card system – and we accept cash, credit cards, debit cards and Apple Pay for the purchase of the laundry cards. In my mind, it all about convenience for the customer and whether or not we accept the most common types of payment available. We accept the “currencies” our customers are using everywhere else they go, so why not at our laundromat as well?
My feeling is that we are “up to date for now,” but I’m sure something new will come along, and if it gains acceptance, we will try to make it available to our customers.
