Maximizing Your Laundromat’s Vending Operation
[This is the second of a two-part feature article on how to build a profitable vending operation within your laundromat. You can read Part 1 here.]
Leading laundromat owners discuss the vending operations at their businesses:
Jeff Moak
Super Clean Laundromat
Ajax, Ontario, Canada
We offer single-use-size laundry products including Tide, Gain, Oxi Clean, Downy, Clorox Liquid Bleach, laundry bags, and Bounce sheets. For snacks, we offer six chip varieties, multiple chocolate bags, candy, and cookies. For beverages, we have eight types including Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, Coke Zero, and Orange Crush.
Tide, Downy, Bounce and LaundroSak laundry bags are our biggest sellers in our soap vending machines, while our No. 1 snack seller are Cheetos Puffs.
Our pricing is based on market averages and the cost of the products. A 1.5-ounce bag of chips is $1, chocolate bars and candy are $1.50, and cans of soda are $1.25. Our soap products range from between $1.25 and $1.50, with a price increase coming soon.
We decide which products to carry based on prior sales data, personal taste, and the published leading sellers in Canada for chocolate bars.
Biggest Challenge: Making sure the machines are working and always fully stocked.
Vending Trends: The COVID-19 pandemic saw a sharp decrease in beverage and snack sales, although sales have since rebounded. Laundry-related, single-use sales have increased with no apparent reasoning behind the uptick. In addition, chemical injection with the automatic dispensing of detergents directly into the wash cycle replacing over-the-counter and single-use vended product sales is a growing trend I’ve noticed.
Best Practices: Make certain your vending machines are clean in appearance, always stocked with product, and in working order. If customers can’t rely on purchasing products from your laundromat, they will choose to bring in their own items instead.
Ed Zinnecker
Shamrock Laundry
Loveland, Ohio
For snacks, we offer six different types of chips and nine different candies/cookies. We have juice selections, as well as six beverages to choose from. Also, we feature an eight-column soap vending machine that includes most of the well-known detergent brands, along with laundry bags.
Our best-selling snacks are Hot Fries and Hot Cheetos, and the favorite beverages are Coke and Mountain Dew. Our leading laundry-related vended item is Tide, followed by Gain.
Prices are based on our costs, plus a markup. We also check the pricing at other laundromats in our market to see how competitive we are. Laundry detergent is $1, laundry bags are 75 cents, candy is $1.25, chips are 75 cents, and sodas is $1.
We choose the vended items we carry by soliciting feedback from our customers, as well as continuing to stock the best-selling products.
Biggest Challenge: Cleaning up behind some of our customers who may not be as considerate of others as they should be.
Vending Trends: Most of the changes in vending trends for us have to do with the specific products that have become the top sellers. Most of these changes are due to the broader diversity of our customer base and how product advertisements are being perceived.
Best Practices: Keep the machines in working order, keep them fully stocked, and provide timely resolutions to any problems customers may have with dispensing a product. Vending machines as sources of revenue. When they’re not working, especially the soap vendor, we run the risk of losing customers, because they can’t purchase products to do their laundry.
Matt Zinicola
New Ipswich, N.H.
We have one eight-column laundry product vending machine, where we sell LaundroSak laundry bags, OxiClean, All detergent, Gain detergent, Tide detergent, Bounce dryer sheets, Clorox color-safe bleach, and All Free Clear detergent. Our top three sellers, in order, are Tide, Bounce, and OxiClean.
We vend all product for $1 each, with the price most likely increasing to $1.25 by the end of the year.
I chose those detergents that are the most popular – making sure to offer a fragrance-free and dye-free option, a bag option, a dryer sheet option, and two additives for stain removal.
Biggest Challenges: We’re limited to just eight product options, coin-vend sizes, and the varieties that are offered.
Vending Trends: Supply prices has increased, specifically with regard to shipping costs.
Best Practices: Always keep your vending machines clean, looking like new, and fully stocked. The frustration of a sold-out product or an out-of-service machine could lead some customers to never consider buying from your vending machine again.
Stan Sugarman
Oz Laundry
Atlanta
We offer a combination vending machine – with one side featuring detergents, fabric softener, and dryer sheets; while the other side is refrigerated and includes candy, snacks, and beverages.
Our most popular laundry item is Gain in a 10-ounce package, while our best-selling beverage are the Arizona Tea juices. Our overall margin is 50 percent – and we add and subtract items from the rotation, based on availability, sales and customer feedback.
Casey Wright
Maytag Laundry
Rush City, Minn.
Each of our laundries has a beverage machine, a candy machine and a soap machine, which features detergent, fabric softener sheets and bags. In addition, some locations have claw machines that we fill with candy and have programmed to keep running until the player wins.
Our best-selling laundry items are Tide, Bounce and laundry bags. Meanwhile, our top soda/food sellers are Mountain Dew and Munchies Snack Mix.
Our pricing is based on the average cost for the products sold. Our price for soda is $1, and snacks range from $1 to $2.50, depending on the size of the snack. Our laundry products range in price from 75 cents to $1.25.
We offer a row of 25-cent candy in our machines, but we likely will remove it as soon as we find something to replace it. This row is popular with kids, because it includes suckers, granola bars, fruit rollups, etc.; however, there is very little margin in this row. Currently, we view it as a convenience to parents who can give their kids a few quarters and let them pick something from the machine. Not surprisingly, this row moves considerably slower in the stores that we’ve converted to card payment, thus removing the ability to pay with coins.
We choose products based on our experience with what has sold in the past and what we can currently get. We buy most of our candy and soda from Sam’s Club locations near our laundromats.
Biggest Challenges: Getting a variety of snacks is becoming more difficult. Sam’s Club doesn’t have the variety of chips or candy that it used to. Of course, it can be time-consuming to get the products for keep our machines stocked. It helps that we operate multiple stores, so we can buy in larger volume and reduce the number of trips to replenish products.
Vending Trends: Upon converting to card-operated stores, we noticed an initially large decline in vending sales; however, those sales, for the most part, have returned to normal. Some of that decrease can be explained by the fact that non-customers were no longer coming into the laundromats to buy snacks and drinks. It also could be due to us not accepting coins. People seem a little less likely to walk over and grab a candy bar or a bag of chips by swiping a card, rather than dropping a few coins into the vending machine.
Best Practices: Although this isn’t necessarily a “best practice,” we do have something fun we like to do. When filling a candy machine and there are kids in the store, we let them come over and pick out any single piece of candy they want. Typically, they pick something from the 25-cent row, but not always. It’s a nice gesture for the parents, who are busy doing laundry – and we’ve received several compliments on this over the years.
Beck Miller
LaundroLab
Charlotte, N.C.
We have three separate vending machines – one for drinks, one for snacks, and one for laundry products. Drinks and snacks are exactly what you would expect to see in a standard vending setup: sodas, juices, water, energy drinks, and all types of chips and candy. On the laundry products side, we offer several brands of single- and multiple-use packages of detergent, softener, bleach, dryer sheets, and laundry bags.
Our top sellers vary by market. In some of our stores, it’s Suavitel fabric softener, and in others it’s Gain detergent.
It’s important to understand your surrounding area and to price accordingly. Customers are going to pay a premium for products in your vending machines because of convenience, but the convenience factor decreases if there’s another location within the same shopping center that offers the same products for substantially less. For example, being located next to a Dollar Tree and trying to price single-use detergent the same way large bottles are priced won’t get you many sales. Find a profit margin and pricing strategy that works for you and stick with it across items.
With regard to what brands and types of items we choose to offer, we look at neighboring businesses to see what they stock in their machines, and of course, we track sales. If an item isn’t selling, we rotate it out for another one. Items that sell a lot, we allocate additional vend spaces to.
Biggest Challenges: There is additional upkeep for the vending machines themselves, restocking, and additional cash to count and deposit. The biggest challenge is the need to store and maintain additional inventory.
Vending Trends: Vending machine revenue tracks closely with turns per day. If you get busier or slower, your vending sales will typically track alongside. In addition, we haven’t noticed much seasonality with our vended items. Lastly, I believe laundry products are some of the most brand-loyal products on the market.
Best Practices: Keep your machines stocked. This sounds simple, but neglecting your vending machines will cost you money. If you have a busy store, you may need to restock some machines daily. Additionally, monitor what sells and adjust accordingly. Don’t create a set item list and then keep it the same forever. If products aren’t selling, rotate them out. You don’t want to end up with a lot of expired back stock costing you money.
Sally Anderson
Super Clean Laundromat
Southbridge, Mass.
We have two vending machines with laundry products and one combination machine that includes snacks and beverages.
Our best-selling laundry items are 10-ounce packages of Gain and Tide, Suavitel in 15.2-ounce packages, Snuggle fabric softener, plastic laundry bags, and large cloth laundry bags. As far as food and beverage items, our customers seem to prefer Coke, Sunny D, Snapple, single-serving bags of cookies, and Cheez-It snacks.
I set the vend price at triple the cost I paid. This way, if something happens with the machine and, for example, two items are accidentally discharged from the vendor rather than just one, at least I still make some profit.
I’ve developed my vended product mix through trial and error – just experimenting and seeing what sells best. I also tend to purchase what’s on sale at the big-box stores.
Biggest Challenges: Certain vended items can be messy. We don’t sell chips anymore for that reason. Also, the packaging of some products is better than others, and this can affect whether or not we can use certain items in our machines – because some will break open or get stuck in the vendor.
Vending Trends: Since the pandemic, I’ve notices that we sell less food and drinks, but we sell a lot more laundry products.
Best Practices: Keep the soda cold! This way it won’t spray everywhere when opened.
