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....

PlanetLaundry Podcast

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The Fruits of his Labor

Jan 27, 2015

Originally posted - Jan issue/2012 Southern California Laundry Owner Opens Fourth Store Joe Thompson wasn't looking to expand his three-store laundromat chain in southern California when he came across a store for sale in Tustin. He was just helping out a friend who...

Not the Retiring Sort

Jan 27, 2015

Originally posted - Oct issue/2012 New Hampshire Couple Builds New Self-Service Laundry, Buys Existing Store Scott and Penny Williams first broke ground on Speedy Wash n' Go in Alton, N.H., last November. However, the couple's self-service laundry didn't open until...

Diversifying His Portfolio

Jan 27, 2015

Originally posted - April issue/2012 Entrepreneur Adds Two Self-Service Laundries to a Mix of Business Ventures Clearly, Kwah Wai Pang likes to stay busy. With a background that includes general management, administration, computing operations, programming, and system...

Headlines

Setomatic/SpyderWash Names New Director of Sales and Operations

Gregg Schantz Promoted to Further Oversee the Company's Continued Growth Setomatic Systems/SpyderWash has announced the promotion of Gregg Schantz to director of sales and operations. Since joining the company full time in 2013, Schantz has helped support SpyderWash...

Avoiding Surprises

Running a small business is far from an exact science. And operating a self-service laundry – with all of the market-by-market idiosyncrasies this entails – at times can be even less of a sure thing. With PlanetLaundry's cover story in May focusing on industry myths...

Huebsch Announces Store Owner of the Quarter

John D. Dixon Recognized for National Laundry in Dickson, Tenn. Huebsch recently named John D. Dixon its Store Owner of the Quarter for his National Laundry, which is located in Dickson, Tenn. Dixon "transformed a rundown store into a thoughtfully designed,...

Cash is King

An Interview with Texas Laundry Owner Bruce Walker Bruce Walker and his wife, Julie, have been in the self-service laundry business since 2002. They own Wash It Kwik, a 3,000-square-foot card-operated store with 82 washers and dryers in Denton, Texas. How did you get...

Listen Here…..

Developing Your Listening Skills Will Help to Make You a Much Better Laundry Owner Open any anatomy book (or just look in the mirror), and you will quickly see that members of the human species have two ears and one mouth. Perhaps the original designer had in mind, as...

Wash with Wally: Thoughts on Free Dry

I own a laundry business that has been in my family for 40 years. Although it does well, someone is building a new self-service laundry just a mile and a half away from my store. I've been considering offering free dry. What do you think about this strategy? I think...

Maytag Distributors Celebrate 16th Annual ‘May is Maytag Month’

Honoring the company's heritage and legacy, several Maytag Commercial Laundry distributors across North America are hosting open houses and service schools during "May is Maytag Month." These events will provide information on new laundry equipment, as well as feature...

Business Bio: Laundry World, Falls Church, Va.

Blair and Charlie Johnson Laundry World Falls Church, Va. Before Getting Into the Laundry Business… Blair is a third-generation laundromat owner. In 1970, Blair's father, Charlie, and his father purchased their first two stores. Blair has been working in the laundry...

Clean 2015: A Recap from Atlanta

Looking Back on the Industry's Trade Show and Convention For first-time attendees, the sheer size and scope of the Clean Show can be a lot to take in. "When I first walked in, it was a bit overwhelming," described Alabama laundry owner Ken Barrett, of this year's...

Clean 2015: A Recap from Atlanta

Originally posted - July issue/2012 I have owned a small, unattended laundromat for four years. I am by no means an expert in the field. However, there are two bits of advice I might be able to give regarding what could potentially cause a business to fail, and...

Shattering the Myths

Veteran Laundry Operators Dispel Some Popular Industry Misconceptions – And Share Their Own Personal Business Surprises The good news is that today there in more information available to new laundry owners and prospective investors than ever before. The bad news is...

Shattering the Myths

Veteran Laundry Operators Dispel Some Popular Industry Misconceptions – And Share Their Own Personal Business Surprises The good news is that today there in more information available to new laundry owners and prospective investors than ever before. The bad news is...

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

Yankee Equipment Hosts 40th Annual St. Patrick’s Day Sales and Educational Event

Yankee Equipment Systems, based in Barrington, N.H., recently hosted its 40th annual St. Patrick's Day Sales and Education Exhibition at the Westin Hotel in Waltham, Mass. This well-attended event gave attendees an opportunity to examine the latest offerings from some...

It’s Time to Think About Excellence

Earl Nightingale in his famous audio recording, "The Strangest Secret", states, "We become what we think about." Napoleon Hill wrote in his book, "Think and Grow Rich", that, "The way to success is the way of continuous pursuit of knowledge." Leaders throughout...

Uber to Shutter Its On-Demand Small-Item Delivery Service

On June 30, Uber will sunset its on-demand delivery service for laundry, groceries, flowers and other items under 30 pounds. The ride-hailing service has notified its users in an email that it will be shutting down UberRush, which has been doing deliveries for...

PayRange Names New VP of Sales

PayRange Inc. - a developer of app-based mobile payment systems for automated retail based in Portland, Ore. - has named Cecil Ledesma its new vice president of enterprise sales. Ledesma spent the last 20 years at USA Technologies, most recently leading the company's...

Statewide Wraps Up Spring Road Shows

Statewide Laundry Equipment – with offices in Jacksonville, Tampa, Orlando and Miami – recently finished its three-day series of annual spring road shows, beginning on March 13 in Tampa at TPepin's Hospitality Centre, followed by a stop in Orlando on March 14, and...