The importance of (clean) clothes is a lot in this modern society. A person is judged by what he/she is wearing. So if you are in a business that provides clean clothes, you will never run out of customers. Don’t know how to start a laundry business? Keep reading because you have landed at the rightmost resource!
Clothes make the man. –German proverb
We all love to maintain a good personality. But in this fast-paced life, who has the time to visit, wait until the clothes are washed and dried? People need something that replaces their efforts to go to such laundry outlets. Here enters the on demand laundry app. With such apps, customers can set a pickup and drop location and time for the clothes, and the employee of the on demand laundry service will come to receive/deliver the laundry.
Is Laundry App Development a Lucrative Business Opportunity?
To start a business is no game. It involves countless efforts, investment of lifelong savings, and a lot of time and energy.
Hence, whichever business idea you pick has to give you the highest returns. Lest it is a sheer waste of your time, energy, and money.
Now that you are convinced with the above figures and details, let’s hop on to how to start a laundry business app?
What Factors Affect the On Demand Laundry Service App Development?
If you have decided to start a laundry business (Laundromat), you need some pre-venture knowledge to succeed in this on demand laundry service business. Let’s go through all the factors that affect formulating your laundromat business plan.
Researching Business Prerequisites
There are some important things to know before setting up a laundry business, like:
All these and many other questions should be satisfied before taking a plunge into setting up a laundry business. Visit your competitors’ websites, read about their services, and observe the customer reviews to get the correct picture.
Learn From Competitors
Learn From Existing On Demand Laundry App Competitors!!
In every walk of life, we must always learn from our own and others’ mistakes. And who’s beter than a competitor to know what mistakes we must not commit in our business route?
Search how companies like Washio, Cleanly, and Rinse prosper in this on demand laundry service industry.
USP – Where To Establish? – All these companies started their first branch in metropolitan cities like New York, Washington, etc. This gave them immense exposure as their target customers are the ones who do not have time to do their own laundry. So the idea that could be a complete failure in urban towns became a smashing success story in such metropolitan cities!
Cleanly is one of the companies that is still standing strong. Its long and successful survival is its thinking of first focusing on profitability rather than scalability. It has achieved immense success by making slow and methodical expansion across America instead of just selling bulk franchises.
Not only Cleanly, but there are also multiple on demand laundry apps functioning:
The Right Laundry Business Model
Every plan that gives you good returns is a successful business plan.
We totally agree with the above statement. It is only a matter of business succeeding!
There are many business models that companies laundry service businesses follow. They have, in fact, achieved great heights in the on-demand laundry service industry. We will talk about some ideas to make your on-demand laundry business get better revenue.
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- Self-service Laundromats
The first business model is the most common one. It has been prevalent since the early 40s. The customer goes to a nearby washateria, puts the laundry into the machine, inserts the coins, and waits for the clothes to be washed. Once dried, they fold and take their fresh clothes home by themselves.
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- Wash & Fold Services
If you plan to get a higher chunk of profit from the laundromat business, this second model is a better choice for you. Under this model, the customers come to your laundromat store to give their laundry to be washed, dry cleaned, or ironed. You or your hired staff does the chore for them. They’ll return for their fresh clothes and pay you for your service. You can also equip your business account with p2p payment apps for receiving online service fees.
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- Laundry Pickup & Delivery
Let’s bump up the previous model with an even greater customer experience and higher profit margin. The customer will ask for a laundry pickup via your laundry app; your employee will pick up the laundry. It gets washed and ironed at your laundromat and then delivered to the customer in their preferred time slot.
A Base of Operations
You need a place under the roof where you will start your laundry business. There are several things to consider while choosing your base of operations, but we can divide all of them into two broad sections: space and location.
Space for your Laundromat
The place should be enough to accommodate all the machines you plan to use and some more space to store bulks of clothes from the customers. Also, the building’s plumbing and electrical output should be enough for your business to function efficiently, even on the busiest of days.
Location of your Laundromat
The location of your laundromat is as vital as the space, if not more. While looking for the right property, the goal is to aim for a place close to most of your potential customers. The best locality would be where most people live in rental homes or off-campus living spaces for college students.
Equipment &Workforce
Once you finalize the location of your laundromat store, then it’s time to fill the space. You have to hire a workforce to run the place and machines to do the work. These are the two main base of your on demand laundry app.
Used or New Equipment
You need to get the right equipment in the correct quantity. An average-sized laundromat can have about 10-15 washing machines and dryers, nearly half of that. We’ll talk more about the cost of all these machines later in the blog.
There are also a few other equipment and machinery that you need to install, like:
Any business needs a sufficient workforce to scale. The same is for the on-demand laundry business. But, hiring more staff doesn’t always guarantee that the company will boom. So it’s better to Crowdsource your work to freelancers who will work for much less. Giving them bonuses for extra runs will make them loyal to your business.
Form A Legal Entity
You need to create a business entity. You will need to file articles of incorporation with the Secretary of State or Corporation Commissioner of your state. The incurring fee depends on which state you are starting your laundry business in and also the category of business you apply for. Typically start-up paperwork costs around $200 to $1000.
Several other legal procedures are to be done, like getting an EIN (Employer Identification Number), opening a business account in a bank, taking business insurance, and much more. It is better to get a business lawyer to help you get through all these steps quickly and make the best decisions for your business and yourself.
Creating A Brand & Marketing
The most important asset of any business is not the equipment, the employees, or even the owner; it’s the brand value. With the brand image that you create in your customers’ eyes, you can boost your reach in a short time. Also, you can bounce back from a bad business phase if people start recognizing your brand.
We might not know the entire core team behind Android or iOS technologies, but we know the brand values, like their integrity and accountability.
This section of the blog ‘How to start a laundry business?’ is the most crucial tip for your lifetime! You need to have a strong marketing strategy to break into this industry and make a name for your business in the quickest time frame. The best way forward is to get your name known on all the top social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc.
It’s cheaper than renting giant billboards and will get more eyeballs to your brand. Although, you also need to do old-school marketing activities like advertising in the local papers and magazines, flyers, posters, etc.
How to Get More Customers As Users on Your Laundry App?
Going an extra mile is essential at times. We are giving out three tips to retain your old customers and attract more users to your application.
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- Good UI/UX
The app experience is everything. Hence, along with good laundry services, your laundry app should be free of glitches, and no lags, and you must remove bugs from time to time.
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- Giving Special Offers Regularly
The laundry service application has to provide offers to the users. Users look forward to such discounts and coupons. Therefore, this is a great way to retain the existing customers and attract new ones to install the same.
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- Eco-friendly Business Practices & Policies
You must only equip the laundromat machines with environment-friendly and toxin-free things from the very beginning.
Digitization: The Great Beyond
The telephonic bookings are not very feasible and friendly at these times. People want quick service with the least interaction, and that requirement screams mobile application. An on-demand service app is the solution, and its importance can be improved by launching a supporting website.
Before starting a laundry business, you need to have a high-functioning, user-friendly on-demand laundry app. There’s a myriad of benefits and features that a mobile app brings to the table, which will benefit your business and your customers.
However, to make such a fantastic on-demand laundry app, you need the best mobile app development company to handle your digitization project.
The Cost To Start A Laundry Business
How much does it cost make an app to start a laundry business with an on-demand laundry app like Cleanly?
Well, the short answer would be around $200,000 to $400,000 and more as you grow bigger in size. Now let’s get a detailed budgeting breakdown for setting up a laundry business.
Building a Laundromat will cost you more than an already existing one. If you choose to build your own Laundromat for somewhat 2,000 sq. foot space will cost between $200,000 to $500,000, including the machines (washing machines, dryers, etc.)
If you own a space and only need to buy machines, the top-load washing machines will cost you around $500-$700 each, while the front-loading machines will cost between $3,500 to $20,000 each, depending on the size of the machine. Dryers will cost you around $5,000 to $6,000 per dryer. All in all, to fully stock a Laundromat, you would need $150,000 to $400,000.
An app like Uber For Laundry or On Demand Laundry App Development is a must for this business. To do that, you should know how to hire the best Android app developers. The cost of building a laundry app like Cleanly depends on factors like what features you need in the app, how many platforms (Android, iPhone etc.) are you thinking to build it for and many others. Developing an on-demand laundry app will cost you around $10,000 to $25,000.
Ending the ‘How To Start a Laundry Business’ Guide…
Man is searching for automation in all walks of life, and the business that can provide this automation will have his money. You need to make your on-demand laundry app a full-circle loop that starts from picking up the dirty laundry to dropping off fresh ones.
Giving a complete service with a luxurious touch will help you win your customers’ hearts and money. And to achieve such feats, you need to have the workforce and technology walk hand-in-hand. If you are motivated to create your own laundry and dry cleaning service app, get in touch with the best mobile app development company to fulfill your entrepreneurial dream.
FAQs on Laundry Service Business
With schedules getting busier, laundromat is a very good business. People don’t have the time and patience to do the menial chores at home. Hence, the nearby laundromats earn a lot. Also, you get a plus if you have digitized your business.
Growing a laundry business in the USA is an opportunity to grab in this decade. The specific reason behind the same is that this decade has seen a significant rise in digitization. As a result, you can launch software or a mobile app to boost the bookings on your app.
You can’t get a fixed time frame to develop a laundry app without making a few important choices beforehand.
Only after making these important decisions can an experienced business analyst study your request and provide an accurate timeline and pricing for the app development project.
As a matter of fact, a mobile app is the best way to manage everything about the laundry process. A mobile application is instead an organized and structured way to manage the pick-ups and drops, clothes units, laundromat machine management, etc.
The biggest chunk of revenue for a laundry and dry cleaning app comes from the price charged for the services availed by the customer. The pricing for washing, dry cleaning, ironing, would be different. Additionally, you can also charge a small price for home pickup and delivery service.
You can also offer a membership model where the customers will take up a monthly or yearly membership of your laundry service based on different categories of plans.
Other alternate revenue streams from a laundry app would be by showing advertisements of different brands, mostly related to cleaning products and other household goods.
