Green is Good Business

Green Operations Increasingly Important to Feed Consumer Demand When Green Laundry Lounge co-owners Pulin and Krishna Dasai got into the vended laundry industry, they wanted to change a narrative: laundromats are water and energy-intensive businesses. “The...

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...

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Small Package… Big Concept

Jan 23, 2015

Originally posted - Dec 18, 2012 Scott Moses had a leg up on his competition long before he entered the coin laundry business almost three years ago. As an economics major at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania, Moses landed a position in the banking industry after...

I Educated Mysel

Jan 23, 2015

Originally posted - May 24, 2013 When it comes to a new business venture, Danny Delmarco is a big believer in doing one's homework. So, when he and his business partner, Lloyd Webb, decided to open a self-service laundry - in a building co-owned by Webb and Delmarco's...

People Need to Do Laundry

Jan 23, 2015

Originally posted - Jun 14, 2013 Mischelle Romesberg is accustomed to taking matters into her own hands. As director of plant operations for the personal care branch of Energizer Holdings, she's responsible for making sure some of today's leading over-the-counter...

Headlines

Aiming High

Originally posted - Feb issue/2012 Corporate Pilot Opens New Laundry in College Town Ross Razak's work hours are hardly 9 to 5. So, he was looking to start a small business with just as much flexibility. Not surprisingly, he found exactly what he was looking for in...

‘Time’ Is On His Side

Originally posted - Nov issue/2012 New Entrepreneur Opens His First Self-Service Laundry in Upstate New York At only 27, Scott Carey can already see his future – and it involves dirty laundry. Hopefully, lots and lots of dirty laundry. After all, Carey is the owner of...

Bank on It!

Originally posted - June issue/2012 Former Banking Executive Cashes in with Eco-Friendly Coin Laundry After more than 30 years in the financial industry, Connie Ihrke finally knows what she wants to be when she grows up. A coin laundry owner. "In the banking business,...

Gaining a Competitive Advantage

Originally posted - Jan 24, 2014 Dr. Chuck Bamford is the founder of Bamford Associates, LLC. He has worked with thousands of managers over the last 20 years in the development of implementable strategic plans and an entrepreneurial orientation to growth. He worked in...

Teamwork

Originally posted - Jun 25, 2014 [This is the first of a two-part series on ways to build a successful team of laundry attendants.] Perhaps it's easy for the uninitiated to underestimate the job that self-service laundry attendants perform. However, their duties...

Get in the Game

Originally posted - Aug 26, 2014 For many self-service laundry owners, the coin-operated amusement industry may be an untapped business opportunity. Games and other arcade-style machines offer outstanding profit potential for store operators who are willing to pursue...

2013: The Year in Review

Originally posted - Dec 09, 2013 In odd-numbered years, nothing that happens in the self-service laundry business can top the spectacle of The Clean Show. And 2013 – with the industry's trade show and convention in New Orleans – was no exception. "One of the major...

Turning Point

Originally posted - Jun 17, 2014 Erik Sparks has been a professional pilot for more than 20 years, having spent the last 18 of those years flying for a charter airline – Ryan International Airlines. Over the years, Sparks has flown a diverse list of operations. Those...

Upwardly Mobile

Originally posted - Oct 02, 2013 On average, adults spend more than two hours every day on their smartphones or using their tablets, according to research by Advertising Age. What's more, nine out of 10 mobile searches lead to an action, and more than 50 percent lead...

The New Normal?

Originally - Sep 16, 2014 Technically, the Great Recession lasted from December 2007 to June 2009. That's what the economists and history books will tell you. However, some laundry professionals might have a slightly different timeline. It began with the bursting of...

Taking a New Route

Originally posted - May 28, 2014 Each year, billions of dollars go through apartment laundry rooms, which provide basically the same service your laundromat offers. And, although the target demographics for self-service laundries and apartment laundry rooms are...

Dude, That’s a Totally Gnarly Laundromat!

Originally posted - Oct 11, 2013 Jason Dodge – who owns Milwaukee Laundry & Tanning in Milwaukee, Wis. – has been in the self-service laundry business since 2007. And, until recently, his store has looked pretty much like every other laundromat in town. However,...

This Month's Issue

Get Clear to Keep it Clean: Find Focus to Maximize Your Marketing Efforts
Women In Laundry: From the Washroom to the Boardroom
Store Profile: Southern Suds Changing the Game
Member Spotlight: Hutchinson Belt Drive Systems
And More…

THE LATEST ON LAUNDROMATS

Industry News

Western State Design to Host Training Seminars

Western State Design, headquartered in Hayward, Calif., will sponsor four free Dexter Laundry service training seminars this fall – one in Seattle and three in California. These events will provide vended laundry owners and operators an opportunity to learn "expert...

Overbuilding Slows Multi-Family Housing Market

Over the last year, the multi-family housing market has been lukewarm, to say the least. In fact, ITR Economics - which produces quarterly economic reports for Coin Laundry Association members - recently noted that the single-family market currently outnumbers the...

Florida Laundry Owner Donates Swimming Lessons to Local Youth

Florida multi-store owner Tom Rhodes has always given back to his community through a variety of programs, such as washing blankets for a local faith-based outreach center or donating a percentage of his laundries' profits to charitable organizations.However, Rhodes...

Atlas International Names Wechsler Its New Vended Laundry Sales Manager

Atlas International Laundry & Dry Cleaning Equipment Co. – a distributor of vended laundry and OPL equipment headquartered in Dallas – has named Arthur Wechsler its new vended laundry equipment sales manager for the Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana markets.Wechsler,...

[Video] IMPORTANT UPDATE: The Laundry Doctor Coming to Georgia August 30, 2017

We've added long-time PlanetLaundry contributor, Jeff Gardner (a.k.a. "The Laundry Doctor") to the program for the Georgia Laundromat Industry Meet-Up in Atlanta on August 30, 2017. This free lunch event, which will feature networking, education, and industry...