Leveling the Playing Field

John Um wanted to make sure small business owners could get fair pricing and access to reliable suppliers without needing to have significant buying power. As a leader whose career spanned several major retail and e-commerce companies, he had seen firsthand how hard...

Staying Fierce: Haley Gould Finds Perfect Fit in Vended Laundry

Haley Gould is the Director of Partner Success for HappyNest. She manages an internal team while leading more than 100 partners across the United States building a successful pickup and delivery operation in addition to running their laundromat business. A consummate...

Metrics That Matter

Profit, Performance, and Planning in Vended Laundry The laundromat business is like most businesses in that you need to do a lot of things right to be successful. But how do you know if it’s working? According to successful owners, you just need to look at the...

Startup to Scale

How Western State Design Has Been Helping Laundry Businesses Thrive for More Than 50 Years For more than five decades, Western State Design has been a leading provider of turnkey laundry solutions across the vended, on-premises, and commercial/industrial markets....

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Is the Price Right?

Jan 28, 2015

Originally posted - March issue/2012 Accurately Calculating What Your Vend Prices Should Be Goes Well Beyond Figuring Out the Cost of a Wash and Dry It's not uncommon for newcomers to the industry to ask how to accurately calculate the cost of a wash and a dry to help...

What to Know Before You Sign on the Dotted Line

Jan 28, 2015

Originally posted - Jan 30, 2013 From our experience in brokering existing laundries and developing new ones, it is clear that now, more than ever, a building lease can determine the success or failure of a store. Over the last four years, we have had many store...

If You’re Not Looking at Your Business, Nobody Is!

Jan 28, 2015

Originally posted - Mar 14, 2013 I have a tremendous amount of respect for the small-business owner. As someone who has played on both sides of the fence, i.e. corporate executive and independent business owner, I have come to understand how small-business owners do...

Headlines

AHAM Report: New Home Appliances Result in Substantial Utility Savings for Consumers

New Technologies Boost Efficiency for Many of Today's Home Appliances The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers recently released its 2014 Energy Efficiency and Consumption Trends report on major home appliances. The data, based on 2014 shipments of major...

Business Publication: WASH Laundry Among Top 100 Private Companies in L.A.

Laundry Facilities Management Firm Ranked with the Largest, Fastest-Growing Companies in the Market WASH Multifamily Laundry Systems has been ranked among the top 100 largest and fastest-growing companies in Los Angeles County by the Los Angeles Business Journal. WASH...

Get Involved… Stay Involved

The year is quickly coming to an end. The time seems to go faster and faster each year. As you reflect back on the goals you set out to accomplish this year, did you meet or exceed them? Did you do what you said you were going to do? It's never too late to set goals...

One Woman’s Laundromat Journey

Sometimes, it's about being in the right place at the right time. I grew up in Foster City, Calif. And my favorite restaurant was in a local shopping center there, which was located adjacent to a rundown laundromat. In 1996, through the grapevine, I discovered that...

Wash with Wally: Battling Garment Odors, Cleaning Tablecloths and More…

I bought a laundromat a few months ago, and I have been seeing the wash-dry-fold business decrease every month. I've taken my own clothes to my store to have them washed with our drop-off service, and the clothes came out smelling quite bad - to the point where I had...

Tide to Be Produced Through Wind Power

Procter & Gamble Announces New 'Wind Farm' for Fabric, Home Care Brands Procter & Gamble has announced plans to meet its electricity demands by using 100 percent wind power to produce its Fabric & Home Care brands, including Tide and Dawn. In partnership...

Laundrylux Upgrades Communications Capabilities

System Enhancement Designed to Better Service Customers, Distributors Across North America Laundrylux recently completed a major upgrade to its communications systems to support customer care and business growth in North America. The new system is designed to enhance...

Laying Out Your Laundromat

Tips for Planning and Designing Your New Self-Service Laundry Business for Maximum Effectiveness and Customer Convenience [The following is an excerpt from the popular laundry business book, "Secrets of Buying and Owning Laundromats." ] When planning and designing...

Heating Your Stores Water

A Primer for Today's Self-Service Laundry Operator Hot water – along with total water usage (and the demand for both in the latest generation of washers) – is as much as 65 percent less than it was for most washers when I started in this business in 1979. With that...

2015: The Year in Review

Recapping the Issues That Defined the Year – And Looking Ahead to 2016 In odd-numbered years, typically nothing that occurs in the self-service laundry industry can steal the spotlight from the Clean Show. And 2015 – with the industry's trade show and convention...

2015: The Year in Review

Recapping the Issues That Defined the Year – And Looking Ahead to 2016 In odd-numbered years, typically nothing that occurs in the self-service laundry industry can steal the spotlight from the Clean Show. And 2015 – with the industry's trade show and convention...

It’s Not About You, Tom

An Interview with CLA Member of the Year Tom Rhodes At Clean 2015 in Atlanta this past spring, second-generation, multi-store owner Tom Rhodes was presented with the Coin Laundry Association's Member of the Year award. As a member of the CLA Board of the Directors, as...

This Month's Issue

Green is Good Business: Green Operations Increasingly Important to Feed Consumer Demand
Women In Laundry: Lee Ann Geurts Loves a Challenge
Store Profile: Kings Laundry Kicking it in Los Angeles
Untapped Growth Opportunities
And More…

THE LATEST ON LAUNDROMATS

Industry News

Whirlpool Corporation Showcases Renovated Manufacturing Facility

Company Rolls Out New Line of Maytag Multi-Load Washers Geared Toward Vended, OPL Markets Whirlpool Corp. Commercial Laundry leadership recently took Maytag Commercial Laundry customers, several Massachusetts government officials and members of the media on a...

Unilever Confronts the ‘Chairdrobe’

Marketers at consumer goods giant Unilever are focused on what they’re calling the “chairdrobe.” It’s that heap of lightly worn clothes draped over chairs in more and more bedrooms these days, often crumpling people’s “go-to garments.” It’s a familiar sight in the...

Eastern Funding Hosts Laundry Improvement Workshops

Eastern Funding recently hosted two laundromat improvement workshops in Los Angeles and Anaheim. More than 90 industry participants, consisting mainly of laundry owners and prospective investors, spent time discussing various topics impacting the industry, including...

Huebsch Names Store Owner of the Quarter

Huebsch has named multi-laundry operator Michael Finkelstein its Store Owner of the Quarter. Finkelstein's newest Laundry Land location in Portsmouth, Va., delivers a level of excellence that rises above others in his market, which has been Michael's commitment since...

First CLA Connect LIVE Event Scheduled for Atlanta

The Coin Laundry Association will hold its first CLA Connect LIVE event on September 25 at the Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center in Atlanta. The meeting - scheduled for 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. - will feature a presentation by CLA President and CEO Brian Wallace, who...