You Have to Work with What You Have

 

Its easy to walk into a newly built or remodeled laundromat and find your mat very lacking in looks, equipment, or modern conveniences. It’s natural.

Look around and take notes and explore and educate yourself, but remember…you can only work with what you have!
If you have 36 inch doors and the 100lb washer a competitor has is 41.5 inches wide, if you or your landlord isn’t willing or able to make a bigger door opening or take a window out you aren’t getting that 100lb washer into your store!
Don’t fret what you can’t have but concentrate on making the most of what you DO HAVE.
In one of my stores I remodeled and took out three 35lb Milnor washers and replaced them with one 60lb Maytag washer and three 40lb Maytag washers. I only had room for four large chassis washers.
That combination worked great for many years.
Over time customers started asking for more 60lb washers because the one I had was always filled.

I explored adding more reinforcement to the floors and creating another large chassis area but the cost was around $40K which was half of the revenue the store made for a year and wasn’t practical. This wasn’t even taking into account the changes in power, drainage, and water I would need to bring to the store additional large chassis machines.
To give the customers what they wanted I took out the 40s and replaced all three with 60s.
I had the room and was able to charge a higher vend. All four machines are busy.
I also raised the prices on my small chassis washers so there wasn’t so much of a price discrepancy and over time have replaced some of the smaller washers with larger capacity small chassis washers like Huebsch or LG that have allowed me to charge a higher vend, give customers a larger machine, and create a price tier between my small chassis and large chassis washers that is comfortable for a group of customers.

In any store you will only have a certain amount of space, specific way the bulkheads or walls were constructed, or a certain way the utilities were put in. More importantly YOU PROBABLY HAVE A FINITE AMOUNT OF MONEY that a complete gutting and rebuilding of your mat isn’t in the cards. Make use of what you have and keep notes for if you ever do a remodel or new build of a different store.

When you can’t do something a new store can do, Remember to follow the four rules of owning a laundromat and you’ll have a successful store no matter the size or age:
Keep it Clean
Keep it well lit
Keep it safe
Keep machines running

Ev
A Heck of A Nice Guy