Many get into the business by purchasing an existing laundry and renovating it. However, there is room for new laundry owners. In some areas of the country, there are too many laundromats already. The industry is what experts describe as a "mature market." Save for areas that are seeing high population growth, pretty much every neighborhood that needs a laundry has one - or two or three - that are competing vigorously. While the trends we've mentioned are favorable for entrepreneurs entering the laundry business, they don't suggest that business is booming. And as more people wear casual clothing (which doesn't require dry cleaning) to work and leave the nicer duds for special occasions, you may find that consumers will be making more trips to the laundromat. In addition, office dress codes are growing increasingly less formal. In other words, although the majority of laundromat customers are low- to middle-income renters, some laundries are tapping into higher-income markets by offering convenience: wash-and-fold service and large machines. "They just run over to the coin laundry, use a couple of the large machines and knock it off," he said. With the regular capacity machines used in homes, it can take quite a lot of time to do load after load - and that's where laundromats come in. "It's doing well." Partyka also notes that even people with washers and dryers at home are using self-service laundries for the sake of convenience. "It's by far the number-one extra service for laundries," said Partyka. Other social phenomena, like the prevalence of two-income families, suggest that convenient services such as wash-and-fold will continue to grow in popularity as working parents have less time to attend to household chores like laundry.Īccording to a survey from the Coin Laundry Association, more than half of coin laundries offer wash-and-fold. "They're clean, they have a friendly environment, and they have a lot of machines, so you can get in and out of there as fast as possible."Īs the population of the United States grows, the number of renters - your main market - is likely to grow, too. "Our stores are very convenient," Leavitt said. Darcies offers customers a better deal: bigger stores with play areas for children and attendants on duty at all times. Tom Leavitt, owner of Darcies Laundry in the Seattle area at time of interviewing, opened three new stores, all of them near older, smaller laundries, most of which have since closed. "I don't think we'll ever cross that threshold into making laundry fun," Wallace said, "but we're making it more comfortable." Many laundry owners are building kids' centers, holding music concerts, giving away coffee and hiring attendants who are friendly and helpful. Looking for an extra service that will work is always on their mind."Īnother trend laundry owners have recognized is that customers prefer to visit laundromats with a more pleasant atmosphere. Everybody wants to squeeze as much money as possible out of their space. "But it's even more so now with tighter competition and utility bills growing. "Trying to generate additional revenue per square foot has always been an issue," he said. Paul Partyka, who edited American Coin-Op, a magazine devoted to self-service laundries, said Patel's approach is the norm. Some are even picking up laundry from customers' homes and delivering it back to them clean and folded. Laundry owners are capitalizing on this reality by offering their customers time-saving convenience in the form of wash-and-fold (drop-off service) and dry-cleaning service. The first is that, for most of us, meeting the demands of work and our personal lives leads to a time crunch - there just aren't enough hours in the day to accomplish everything we would like to. The coin-operated laundry industry has changed in response to several trends. Many laundry owners also employ attendants to keep an eye on the store and help customers use the equipment. Instead, customers use swipe cards that subtract the cost of the wash or dry, much like a phone card or debit card. Newer laundries have snack bars, a place to leave off and pick up dry cleaning and video games.
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