Two Core Business Directions for Laundries: Right Strategy, Double Profit

Many laundry operators are busy all year long, but their profits are meager. This is common in the laundry industry. However, this situation should not have lasted because the key to business success is not blind hard work. It is recognizing the order of tasks and focusing on the important task. Though many shop owners are busy, much of their time and energy is wasted on inefficient operations. Running a consistently profitable laundry is never difficult. The only thing that matters is finding the right business direction. 

Rational Time Usage

Time is the most valuable asset for laundries. The industry relies heavily on labor and has huge gaps between peak and off-season. Only by increasing time value as much as possible and focusing energy on high-return tasks can laundries break the cycle of being busy but unprofitable.

● Precise Annual Planning

Many laundry owners have misunderstandings. They focus on learning technical skills during the off-season without real laundry practice. When peak season arrives, they forget what they have learned. This results in wasted time on repetitive training. Laundry skills rely heavily on practical practice, so learning from practice helps quick mastering. Laundries can learn technical skills in peak seasons and expand memberships in off-seasons.

- Peak season

Owners can learn stain removal and fabric maintenance techniques with many real cases to practice and consolidate.

- Off-season

Owners focus on marketing and membership development. This lays a solid profit foundation for peak seasons and avoids idle time and wasted effort.

● Refined Daily Time Allocation

Laundries should break down annual plans into daily routines and save dedicated time for sales work. All sales tasks (offline ground promotion, in-store membership sign-ups, online WeChat customer retention, campaign promotion...) must be done normally. The thought of only running promotions on holidays should be abandoned because combining periodic campaigns with daily customer acquisition can keep bringing in new clients.

● Washing Duration

High operating costs for laundries is mainly from high hand-washing ratios, long processing time per item, and complex services with low prices. To change this condition, laundries should use intelligent advanced laundry equipment to reduce manual workload with the premise of guaranteeing washing quality.

Kingstar wet cleaning machines and Kingstar intelligent dryers are ideal solutions.

- Kingstar wet cleaning machine

The Kingstar wet cleaning machine stores 79 sets of automatic programs to fully automated wash clothes of different fabrics and processes. With computerized program control, it has more precise water temperature, mechanical force, and chemical dosage than manual work. The washing quality is also more stable.

- Kingstar intelligent dryer

The Kingstar intelligent dryer has 99 automatic drying programs. People only need to simply sort clothes, then the corresponding program can be used for fully automatic drying. This greatly reduces the manual intervention and makes the washing quality more stable.

● Turnaround Cycles

During peak seasons, turnover cycles often last three to five days, even up to half a month. This occupies in-store space and leaves customers dissatisfied. Customers may switch to other laundries. Laundries should shorten retention time and speed up inventory turnover.

Business Expansion

A common industry misconception is that raising unit prices boosts profits. Some people hope to earn more with fewer orders. However, large profits need full support from store image, location, equipment, technology, and service conditions. Most small laundries cannot meet these requirements. For ordinary laundries, growing order volume is a far easier path to higher profits than raising prices blindly.

● Expand Customer Base

One-size-fits-all marketing should be avoided for all customers. Owners can classify clients by consumption capacity.

- 5% of customers spend ¥2,000 annually

- 10% spend ¥1,000

- 20% spend ¥500

- 50% spend ¥300

- the rest spend ¥100

Customized customer acquisition and retention strategies are for each tier. Instead of increasing single-customer consumption as much as possible, focusing on expanding the overall customer base can drive revenue through larger transaction volume.

● Increase Order Volume

A practical industry formula: 10% of total membership base ≈ daily regular order volume

Laundries first expand the membership scale, then boost repeat business with quality service, and daily order volume will naturally rise.

Fixed costs such as rent, equipment depreciation, and labor barely increase with more orders, and variable costs like water, electricity, and detergent have little growth. Higher order volume reduces the cost per garment and widens profit margins.

Conclusion

Laundries should build a business model according to their own conditions. Maintaining a learning mindset, and staying updated on industry trends, new technologies, advanced laundry equipment, and innovative detergents is the way to sustain long-term stable operation.

Q&A

Q1: What activities can laundries run in the off-season to improve customer loyalty?

A1: Promotional campaigns for washing bedding, shoes, curtains, and other textile products.

Q2: Kingstar washing machines have 15kg, 25kg, 40kg, and other capacities. Is larger always better? How to choose the right model?

A2: Larger doesn’t mean better. The choice depends on business structure and venue space.

- 15 to 25kg

They are ideal for small independent laundries.

- 40kg and above

They are suitable for large central laundry factories.

Industrial washers’ loading capacity must be controlled carefully. Underloading may damage the machine, and overloading leads to unclean washing.

Q3: Washing machines have versions of steam heating and electric heating. Which should laundries choose?

A3: Steam heating heats up faster, but it needs investment in steam generators and supporting facilities. It also needs sufficient space. It is more energy-efficient and has a stable temperature. As a result, it is perfect for large central laundry factories.

Electric heating equipment is plug-and-play with no extra supporting facilities required. It is the best choice for small laundries.