Adding New Services and Customer Offerings to Your Laundry Business Can Greatly Add to Your Bottom Line
In the laundromat world, as in any business venture, owners can greatly boost their profit and revenue simply by knowing what their customers want most – and then giving it to them.
In this column, I’ll share some of the proven, tried-and-true service additions that can enhance customer convenience – as well as highlighting a few of the trending new offerings that will help your laundry operation stand apart from the competition. Each suggestion can greatly contribute to stronger revenue and higher profits.
Vending Machines
Whether these machines vend bleach, detergent, soda, snacks or high-end coffee, they cater to your laundromat’s captive audience. All require maintenance, but can prove quite profitable.
Uniformed Attendants
Helpful, uniformed attendants will make your customers feel safe and welcome – in addition to answering questions, cleaning the store, providing equipment function information and issuing refunds. Research indicates that customers prefer to do their laundry at fully attended stores.
A Big Washer
If you don’t have a 90- or 130-pound-capacity washer in your laundromat, you should install one soon. Not enough floor space? Consider removing two smaller machines to make room. It’s worth it. A large-capacity washer helps your store stand apart from competitors. Plus, big washers are otherwise not accessible to homeowners and renters. In my experience, those big washers bring in the big revenue – and, more often than not, they’re used by customers more than any other machine in the store.
Automatic Chemical Injection
Although not all vended washers have the capability to automatically inject detergents, softeners and disinfectants, some machines do. If your washers have this capability, consider activating this feature, especially on your larger machines. There are new chemical-injection products on the market designed specifically for laundromats that automatically dispense specially formulated detergents, brighteners, softeners and disinfectants into compatible washers. The result is consistently excellent cleaning results in less time. Utilize automatic injection on your largest washers so that customers can avoid lugging and loading detergents.
Pearl Laundry, located in San Diego Country, has added automatic chemical injection to a 90-pound-capacity washer with great results. In fact, ever since adding chemical injection to that machine, the washer now turns eight to 10 times a day during the week, and more than a dozen times per day on the weekends, according to owner Mark Mariani.
Ozone Sanitation
Many laundromat owners have seen dramatic increases in business by adding ozone sanitization. This can be achieved by using a washer’s automatic chemical injection capability to introduce ozone gas into the wash cycle, which then naturally eliminates nearly all viruses, molds and bacteria from laundry. Ozone sanitization is something customers can’t get at home (without bleach), at their apartment’s laundry room or, most likely, at other laundromats in your market. It’s also a differentiator if you offer a drop-off wash-dry-fold service. Ozone injection can be added to an entire laundromat or just to a few machines.
Heather Valconesi, co-owner of Evans Express Laundry Center in Evans, Colo., believes ozone delivers peace of mind.
“Our customers want to know their laundry – and our machines – are sanitized,” she said. “With ozone, they don’t have to worry about who used the machines before them, and the ozone leaves laundry fresh-smelling, bright and clean.”
Upgrade Washer Controls
Give customers more options and control over how they wash their laundry. There are two ways to do this: (1) invest in new washers with controls offering additional wash options, or (2) upgrade existing washer controls so that they feature these wash cycle “extras.” Customers will appreciate the ability to customize the wash process to best fit their needs.
And, as a store owner, you’ll make more money. After all, each time a customer chooses an “extra,” the vend price goes up – contributing to increased revenue. Quite simply, if your washers don’t offer extras, you won’t be able to benefit from this potential additional income.
Wash-Dry-Fold Service
With the addition of a drop-off wash-dry-fold service, laundromat owners create an additional revenue stream that typically can represent somewhere between 15 percent and 40 percent of a laundry business’ total revenue. This service must be carefully managed, but it’s the perfect way to make smart use of idle equipment and attendants. Plus, a wash-dry-fold service can lay the foundation to also add a commercial laundry service, and possibly a pickup-and-delivery service as well.
