If you’re wondering about how to start a laundromat business and you’re not sure if the investment will be worth it, consider the following arguments in favor.
1. They provide passive income
Have you ever dreamt of running a business that could quite literally provide you with passive income – you know, proverbially in your sleep? A laundromat may be that business. They are associated with low costs, too (more on that below).
2. There are few to no labor costs
Depending on your model, you might be able to get away with having an unstaffed laundromat. Even if you do need to staff a facility, supervision required is usually minimal and hands-off. Also, it’s not skilled labor, so labor costs would be low anyway, improving the profitability of the operation.
3. You need to keep very little inventory
While you will need to keep some things on hand, like soap and detergent, as a general rule, there’s no inventory you’ll need to keep. Managing inventory and accounting for it is a huge resource-sapper for other business models. As a laundromat, you’ll be entirely free of that. What you’re selling is more or less a service, and that improves the efficiency of the operation.
4. Extra services can provide additional income streams
If you want, there are ways to go about offering additional services through your laundromat that can improve the profitability of the model. For instance, you could look into offering other laundry services like dry cleaning or special stain removal services. If you have access to the skills, you could offer tailoring, too. Granted, these will add more expenses, but there are ways to engineer it to be more profitable.
5. They are recession resistant
Arguably the most attractive aspect of starting a laundromat business is that they are near-impervious to many of the economic constraints and concerns of other ventures. Laundromats, specifically, are highly resistant to recessions. Just think about it – it’s not a luxury, and as long as people are living their daily lives, they’ll need clean clothes. That means you have less to worry about with respect to the ups and downs of the markets.
6. They can provide a high return on investment
Because of the low costs associated with running a laundromat business, they are remarkably profitable. In fact, some laundromats can achieve an ROI as high as 35%, which is impressive, to say the least.
7. General simplicity
Other business models may require skilled labor or expensive or perishable inventory. Laundromats are pretty basic as far as businesses go, but that’s no problem considering the potential for profitability that they offer. Laundromats as a general model can offer a lot of flexibility too.
How to Start a Laundromat Business?
Now, back to how to start a laundromat business in the first place. You’ll want to make sure everything is in order. For that you’ll need:
- Funds or financing.
- A plan: are you going to build new, renovate, refit, or buy an existing laundromat? You can also lease if you don’t want to own.
- You need to determine where you will operate as laundromats are location-restricted.
- You will need to outfit the facility with commercial laundromat equipment (washers and dryers) as well as consumables and disposables (like soap, detergent, bleach, etc.)
- You’ll also need a marketing plan. Unless you purchase a laundromat with an established clientele you need to get the word out one way or the other so you can build your customer base.
After you have these details hammered out (this is of course only a high level view) you can get into the specifics of where you’re going to establish your footprint and get the wheels of the operation in motion.
