While filing taxes for your business can be a challenge in the simplest of times, given the government programs set up in the last couple of years to help small and mid-sized businesses through the pandemic, navigating the divide has become even more daunting. Still, by paying attention, and seeking the help of professionals when necessary, laundry owners can take care of their taxes — and might even find some pleasant surprises.
All businesses must have signs, but laundromats rely on them more than many others, says columnist Paul Russo. Isn’t it better if more customers would read, understand, and follow your signage so problems don’t come up in the first place? The retired store owner with 40-plus years of experience describes where certain signs go wrong and offer tips for creating interesting, easy-to-understand signs that will improve a customer’s experience in your store.
Bruce Beggs
Charles Thompson, Publisher
E-mail: cthompson@ATMags.com Phone: 312-361-1680
Donald Feinstein, Associate Publisher/ National Sales Director
E-mail: dfeinstein@ATMags.com Phone: 312-361-1682
Bruce Beggs, Editorial Director
E-mail: bbeggs@ATMags.com Phone: 312-361-1683
Mathew Pawlak, Production Manager
Nathan Frerichs, Digital Media Director
E-mail: nfrerichs@ATMags.com Phone: 312-361-1681
Not one part, not two parts, but three.
Pickup and delivery is a hot business trend right now, and that includes laundry services. Doing people’s laundry for them, other wise known as wash/dry/fold, has been a popular service for some time now.
Factor in a new generation or two who’d rather do just about anything other than wash their laundry and are comfortable doing business via smartphone, plus an added desire to go “contactless” because of the coronavirus pandemic, and you can see why pickup and delivery has gained steam.
So, this month, American Coin-Op begins a three-part series, “Incorporating Pickup & Delivery in Today’s Laundry,” to take a look at what’s involved and how adding the service might impact the average laundromat.
For openers, we look at labor and workflow, starting on 12. Part 2 coming in May will run down the tools a laundry may want to utilize in order to produce the best results, and Part 3 in August will address the marketing and promotion of such a service.
Elsewhere in this issue, Dave Davis, my colleague at sister pub lication American Drycleaner, writes “Essential Post-COVID Tax Tips.” Beginning on page 8, he’ll pass along valuable information shared by a trio of tax professionals to take full tax advantage of the COVID relief programs that have helped small businesses keep their doors open during the pandemic.
Paul Russo examines signage in his latest Pointers from Paulie B column starting on page 18, describing how certain signs go wrong and offering tips for creating interesting, easy-to-understand signs that will improve a customer’s laundromat experience.
However we’re delivering this month’s issue to you—by postal mail or digitally—we’re pleased to have your business.
Bruce Beggs Editorial DirectorMain: 312-361-1700
American Coin-Op (ISSN 0092-2811) is pub lished monthly. Subscription prices, payment in advance: U.S., 1 year $50.00; 2 years $100.00. Foreign, 1 year $120.00; 2 years $240.00. Single copies $10.00 for U.S., $20.00 for all other countries. Published by American Trade Magazines LLC, 650 West Lake Street, Suite 320, Chicago, IL 60661. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, IL and at additional mailing offices.
POSTMASTER, Send changes of address and form 3579 to American Coin-Op, Subscription Dept., 125 Schelter Rd., #350, Lincolnshire, IL 60069-3666. Volume 63, number 2. Editorial, executive and advertising offices are at 650 West Lake Street, Suite 320, Chicago, IL 60661. Charles Thompson, President and Publisher. American Coin-Op is distributed selectively to owners, operators and managers of chain and individu ally owned coin-operated laundry establishments in the United States. The publisher reserves the right to reject any advertising for any reason.
© Copyright AMERICAN TRADE MAGAZINES LLC, 2022. Printed in U.S.A. No part of this publication may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher or his rep resentative. American Coin-Op does not endorse, recommend or guarantee any article, product, service or information found within. Opinions expressed are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of American Coin-Op or its staff. While precautions have been taken to ensure the accuracy of the magazine’s contents at time of publication, neither the editors, publish ers nor its agents can accept responsibility for damages or injury which may arise therefrom.
The creation and development of a “great” self-service laundry can be attributed to many factors. For many store owners responding to this quarter’s American Coin-Op Your Views survey, cleanliness is top of mind for them when someone mentions a “great” laundry.
Roughly 45% of owners polled think first about cleanliness. Equipment mix or numbers is next, at 21.2%, followed by having a friendly owner/employee(s), 15.2%.
Customer comfort, aesthetics/décor and “other” each garnered 6.1% of the vote. Within the “other” responses, staffing, and service and experience were cited.
Aesthetics/décor is the factor that’s most overrated when judging the “greatness” of a store, according to 42.4% of respondents.
Equipment mix/number is next at 15.2%, followed by customer comfort, friendly owner/employee(s) and “other,” each at 12.1%. As might be expected, cleanliness is the least overrated factor (6.1%).
Respondents were asked to identify their store’s best feature. Here are some of their answers:
• “Automatic doors.”
• “Cleanliness.”
• “In-store music.”
• “Our employees are the best thing we have, bar none.”
• “Aisle, folding space and comfortable seating areas.”
• “Lots of equipment, all working.”
While an attended store frequently offers a service level that an unattended store doesn’t, nearly 55% of respondents say yes, an unattended store can still be considered “great.” Roughly 27% say no, and the remaining 18.2% are unsure. Here’s what some respondents answered, along with their reasoning:
• Yes – “Even without attendants, the other attributes still contribute to a store’s operations.”
• Not sure – “Mine is partially attended and I still have trouble keeping up with repairs, cleanliness, unwanted guests, etc.”
• Yes – “Great owners care for the equipment and resolve all customer issues. That makes a great unattended store.”
• No – “I think staff makes a store great.”
• Yes – “Attended stores often criticize unattended stores as being inadequate with little evidence to back it up. I would agree an attended store is a nice luxury but it is not necessary.”
• No – “This may be bias from a big-market perspective. However, an unattended store is simply not capable of offering all the amenities that larger stores can. That said, there is still a place for unattended stores in the overall marketplace.”
• Yes – “If the owner cares enough and has it cleaned a couple of times per day (and) all equipment is in working order.”
• No – “It can be a decent store, but you can’t get refunds, you can’t be helped, you have nobody to go to when things aren’t working properly.”
What about the industry’s overall image? Store owners were asked to describe what’s happened to it since they opened their laundromat. The majority, 45.5%, say it’s “more or less the same.” Slightly more than 30% believe it’s “somewhat better,” and 24.2% say the industry’s image is “far better.” No one described today’s industry image as “somewhat worse” or “much worse.”
American Coin-Op’s Your Views survey presents an unscientific snapshot of the trade audience’s viewpoints. Subscribers to American Coin-Op emails are invited to participate anonymously. To better define owner/operator opinions and industry trends, the entire trade audience is encouraged to take part. ACO
Simple to self-install and available for all laundry brands, PayRange is the simplest way to add a payment option to your existing machines.
Still accept quarters, but cut down on their use, impacts of coin shortages, plus the wear and tear on coin slots. Let your customers pay with their phone — they’ll love it, and so will you!
by Dave Davis
There can be a vast distance separating the skillsets of a successful self-service laundry owner and being knowledgeable in accounting. However, when it’s time to file the taxes for your business, this gulf needs to be bridged.
While this can be a challenge in the simplest of times, given the government programs set up in the last couple of years to help small and mid-sized businesses through the pandemic, navigating the divide has become even more daunting. Still, by paying attention, and seeking the help of professionals when necessary, laundry owners can take care of their taxes — and might even find some pleasant surprises.
Small-business owners have had to learn an alphabet soup of government acronyms in recent months. Among them are the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), Work Opportunity Tax Credits (WOTC) and Employee Retention Tax Credits (ERTC). Understanding what each of these programs was designed to do and how they work together is crucial to successfully dealing with your tax liability.
“There are two levels of the PPP loans that business owners need to be aware of,” says CPA Sean Manning, the CEO of Payroll Vault, a payroll and workforce management company headquartered in Littleton, Colorado. “The good news with PPP is that any qualified expenses are deductible. And the other really good news is that the receipt of those funds, if used for qualified expenses, is nontaxable. That information took a while to filter through. It’s important that laundromat owners discuss this with their tax preparer to make sure it’s all managed properly.”
Qualified expenses, Manning explains, include items such as payroll — as the name of the program implies — as well as rent, utilities, and some day-to-day expenses that allow a business to function. The PPP loans ended in May 2021, and many recipients were eligible for full loan forgiveness.
“There’s a timing component to all of this,” he says. “It’s important to follow the timing of expenses, the timing of when the funds are received in use, and then the timing of when the loan is forgiven to make all those pieces come together so they don’t pay income tax and they get the deductions of the expenses.”
The Employee Retention Tax Credits, or ERTC, is another program that helped many laundry owners survive the darkest days of the pandemic and keep their core staff together.
First offered in 2020, the ERTC is a checklist formula that allows business owners to get a tax credit on a portion of what they paid their employees on their payroll tax reports. The program came to an end as part of the recent infrastructure bill, says Jonathan Boehmer, vice president of client success at PuzzleHR, a human resources firm headquartered in Tampa, Florida. In fact, it was eliminated for the last three months of 2021.
“Many laundromat owners out there may not be aware that the legislation President Biden signed killed the ERTC for Q4 2021,” he says. “They’re not going to be able to claim it.”
While the ERTC has ended, business owners can still look to the past to maximize their benefits if they didn’t take full advantage of them at the time, Boehmer says.
“One thing I want the laundromat owners to know is that the statute of limitations for claiming the ERTC for 2020 and the first three quarters of 2021 is five years,” he says. “I don’t recommend they wait, but if they haven’t claimed their 2020 ERTC as of yet, it’s not widely known that the actual statute of limitations on that is five years to go back and collect it. While they’ve sunset the ERTC program, making Q4 ineligible, that didn’t have anything to do with the five-year statute of limitations to go back and correct the tax forms. I think that’s important information to cleaning communities to know.”
Boehmer cautions business owners not to double-dip when it comes to these programs.
Steps to ensure your business gets all the (tax) credit it deserves(Photo: © ilixe48/Depositphotos)
“The worst common mistake you can make is to commingle wages that are PPP with ERTC,” he says. “For the dollar that you paid your employee with PPP, you cannot also claim that dollar for that pay period for employee retention credits.”
Boehmer believes that Work Opportunity Tax Credits (WOTC) is one of the most powerful government programs aiding employers.
The WOTC program is designed to encourage employers to hire people from targeted groups by giving the business tax credits for each employee that qualifies — up to $9,600 per employee. The targeted groups include veterans, ex-felons, summer youth employ ees, vocational rehabilitation referral employees and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients.
“Let’s say I’m a veteran and you hire me,” Boehmer says. “You can get up to $9,600 of my first $9,600 in salary as a tax credit for your company.”
He points out that an employer can’t ask potential hires certain questions during the recruitment process, such as if they are on social programs, because of various labor laws. “But once you hire them, you can ask them all these questions to see if they fall into any of the demographic populations in order to claim your Work Opportunity Tax Credits.”
Because of the attrition seen in positions in a laundromat, this program can gain an owner significant tax credits — if they know to look for them. The turnover for certain roles is so high that this credit could come into play several times during the year when dif ferent employees have filled the same position.
“Businesses should be aware of this, and they should have methodology and a process in place to legally apply for their Work Opportunity Tax Credits and go through the process,” Boehmer says.
Even for laundromat owners who have owned their business for many years, the past couple of years can present challenges — and opportunities — they might not be aware of come tax time.
“A lot of business owners forget that they need to consider anything that they can reasonably justify as a business expense,” Manning says. “Now might be a really good time to go through their financial statements and their expenses. Has any of that changed? A good example would be launderers who are now doing more delivery. Did they have to buy a delivery vehicle? Do they have delivery expenses now that maybe they didn’t before? Did they modify their workspace or their building or their parking lot in order to accommodate drive-thru pickup?”
Filing an extension on your taxes to wait and see where things ultimately shake out might be a good strategy, he says.
“I tell clients that when there’s rapid change happening to consider the timing of when they file their taxes,” Manning says. “Because there’s been so much information recently, you may want to delay your filing with an extension. You still need to estimate your taxes and pay the taxes; an extension is not an extension to pay. But because there’s been so much information recently, if they are comfortable with the extension process, they might want to consider that in 2022 for their 2021 filing.”
Even with all these new terms and programs, there are certain fundamental steps that laundromat owners should pay attention to
that will help both them and their tax professionals make the pro cess smoother, says Samantha Rocco, a tax and estate lawyer with Einhorn, Barbarito, Frost & Botwinick in Denville, New Jersey.
“To avoid the stress associated with that last-minute scrambling, laundry owners should keep records for their business income and expenses organized and in a secure location throughout the year, rather than waiting until tax time to sort through that paperwork.”
Clear bookkeeping is everyone’s friend when it comes to taxes, Rocco believes.
“For each expense, the business owner should retain a receipt, and I would also suggest scanning the receipts so that they can retain a digital copy,” she says. “In addition, I would suggest creat ing a spreadsheet if the owner doesn’t already have one to track the business’s income and expenses. By doing so, the owner’s task of organizing their receipts will be a lot more manageable.”
Rocco has found that keeping current with tax information can save both headaches and heartaches: “By keeping track throughout the year, a laundromat owner won’t have to try and remember months-old expenses while feverishly looking through old papers trying to locate receipts when tax time inevitably rolls around.”
In fact, the very idea of “tax time” can be a misnomer, she says. It’s more accurate to think of the process as “tax times,” because many owners are required to pay estimated tax payments quarterly.
“Basically, instead of paying one’s entire tax liability in one lump sum, certain entities and individuals are required to pay their federal tax liability in four equal installments throughout the year,” Rocco says. “So, if a business is going to be required to pay estimated tax payments, I suggest making sure to put reminders in the calendar so that the estimated tax payments don’t slip through the cracks. If they do, that can result in penalties from the IRS.”
Rocco says it’s crucial for laundromat owners to maintain an open line of communication with their tax professional or accountant.
“There are some key questions they want to ask,” she says. “Ask them what information do they need from you to file your taxes, and what are the best ways to handle the depreciation of your busi ness assets? Also, have the conversation every year to see if there any proposed changes to tax law that you should be aware of.”
A common mistake occurs when business owners mix their busi ness and personal finances.
“When the owner and the business have one account or one credit card, it can lead to a nightmare at tax time,” Rocco says. “It becomes very difficult to determine which expenses were personal and which were business expenses. So, the best bet is to just keep separate accounts to avoid that confusion.”
And, while the vast majority of self-service laundry owners cer tainly don’t enjoy dealing with taxes, Rocco says it’s best to keep on top of them throughout the year.
“Don’t procrastinate when it comes to contacting your accoun tant,” she says. “Waiting until the last minute, as many of us know, will cause stress. And we want to avoid delaying payment of your tax obligations and avoid any penalties that may be associ ated with paying your tax obligations late to the IRS. That’s never a good thing.” ACO
Dave Davis is editor of sister publication American Drycleaner.
Information in this article is provided for educational and refer ence purposes only. It is not intended to provide specific advice or individual recommendations. Consult an attorney or tax adviser for advice regarding your particular situation.
With today’s consumers looking to conserve their personal time for pursuits that are a lot more fun than doing their laundry, more and more self-service laundromats offering wash/dry/fold (WDF) are adding pickup and delivery to their offerings.
Smartphones that enable users to handle details like ordering and payment online have fueled the public’s embrace of services that come right to their doorstep. COVID-19’s arrival in the U.S. pushed interest in pickup and delivery—PUD, for short—for laundry and other services to new heights.
But before a laundromat takes the leap—hits the road?—there are some things to consider. After all, it would be foolish to think that adding transportation to the production mix wouldn’t create some new challenges.
And thus American Coin-Op is publishing a three-part series this year on incorporating pickup and delivery, starting this month with a look at labor and workflow. Subsequent parts to arrive later this year will address the tools needed (vehicle, computer software, etc.) and the marketing and promotion of such a service.
For Brio Laundry in Bellingham, Wash., the decision to add PUD can be traced directly to the coronavirus pandemic and Brio’s “regular customers who could not come in the store,” says owner Colleen Unema. The 3,000-square-foot laundromat located some 100 miles north of Seattle has two full-time and four part-time staffers.
Brio began offering WDF immediately upon opening in 2012
and added pickup and delivery in 2020 when COVID-19 hit. Whether a laundry starts with walk-in WDF from the get-go or not doesn’t really matter when it comes to adding PUD, Unema believes.
“What matters is quality control and logistical control,” she says. “We started residential pickup with the same software we use for WDF, and use the same set of systems to maintain quality of our laundry process. Both are critical. If you can’t produce a five-star load of laundry, you will not be able to charge a premium for delivery.”
Unema embraces systems and consistency. Meanwhile, PUD service can be full of what she calls “hiccups.”
“I have a pretty lukewarm feeling from it,” she says. “My customers love it. They just love it, so I have to love it. But I don’t love it.”
Matt Simmons, who runs Super Suds Laundromat in Long Beach, California, with brother Aaron, believes in firmly establishing walk-in WDF before taking on PUD.
“You want to have wash and fold (service) down,” Simmons said during a 2021 episode of the American Coin-Op podcast. “Say that you know you’re going to be doing pickup and delivery, I’d start with in-store, because adding pickup and delivery is literally adding another moving part.”
His parents opened Super Suds in the late 1990s, and adding PUD was always the goal of his father, Sanford: “He knew he wanted to bring laundry to the laundromat. He wanted the machines spinning at nighttime, and he knew it was possible.” Super Suds and its roughly 200 washers and dryers handles some 600 pickup orders a month, according to Simmons.
Mark Vlaskamp is co-owner and managing partner of The Folde, a laundry pickup and delivery service that relies on ▼
There’s more: We’re just two members of NIE’s team of experts. NIE has been handling fabricare insurance since 1915!
laundromats it owns in Houston and Austin, Texas, as processing hubs. The Folde utilizes 10 vans and 60 employees, with very few positions being full-time; out of the Austin store, it’s doing roughly 7,000 to 10,000 pounds of mostly residential work a day. That laundromat covers about 5,500 square feet and warehousing occupies the remaining 2,000.
“A lot of pickup and delivery companies like to be the antithesis of a laundromat,” Vlaskamp says. “But we’re laundromat guys. We have laundromats, we like laundromats. … A digital marketing firm can figure out how to get customers in and do all the bells and whistles. We like figuring out the operational workflows, fixing the machines, setting up the (standard operating procedures), things like that.”
The obvious change in labor by adding PUD is the new driver position or positions. And as volume picks up, it may become necessary to add more attendants and/or additional work shifts.
Simmons thinks that deciding how and when to staff grows easier the busier a laundry becomes because the PUD order volume aids in calculating labor needs by day.
As an operation grows in scale, its leadership may need to broaden the scope of positions working on PUD WDF, according to Vlaskamp. For example, The Folde employs workers whose solitary task is to load washers or to move goods from warehousing to processing.
“Everyone is jumping into (PUD) but I think owners are trying to figure out what that sweet spot is,” Vlaskamp says. “Some people want a laundromat with two attendants and just to keep those attendants busy, and that’s awesome. Get an attendant, get a driver, and you can make good extra margin and revenue on that.
“But you’ve got to figure out how long you’re keeping your foot on the gas, because if you keep it on the gas, it turns more and more into a warehouse and logistics and you do really have to reach that next level.”
The laundry process turnaround for customer delivery is “non-negotiable,” says Unema, so staffing—and staff training—is critical for Brio.
“We already knew how to do laundry, and make money at it,” she says. “Now the trick is to merge two streams of incoming laundry into the established process – and produce two streams of laundry, one for in-house and one for delivery.
“Keeping it sorted, tagged, prepared for a car ride and porch delivery in all kinds of weather, sometimes common sense isn’t there, so training becomes very important.”
But the Brio turnover rate was such that Unema felt she was training “over and over again.” So she created “Brio Laundry University,” an online learning management system featuring training videos, worksheets and quizzes.
“[Our workers] get to see what to do, when, how, and what the quality control standards are. We will require all of our attendants to take and pass the classes. It is very detailed and puts into a system how to do laundry in a production-style process. The only way to make money doing laundry is to think ‘production.’”
While every laundromat is similar, few are identical. So each physical layout comes with its own unique challenges. But a standard laundromat layout is a good starting point for doing WDF and coordinating PUD, Vlaskamp says.
“There is a point where a traditional laundromat setup becomes inefficient and you have to start gearing your processes toward assembly line, like a Henry Ford-type setup, warehouse-type setup,” he adds.
Upon adding PUD, Brio put in stainless steel rolling racks with secure coverings and designated a staging area for incoming soiled laundry, says Unema.
Additional storage space becomes a need once PUD is added.
“In a way, some of the most valuable space at our laundromat is the storage to be able to store the clothes,” says Simmons, who describes Super Suds emptying out in the morning as PUD deliveries are made but filling up by 8 that night with the day’s pickups. “And you need to have the right machine mix to process all the clothes, as well. And you also need to have, as you get busier, flexible staffing.” ▼
“I’ve seen creative takes on cabinetry, going vertical with floorto-ceiling shelves, anything you can do to get extra space,” says Vlaskamp, whose company takes advantage of the area behind its dryers to store goods before washing. “It speaks to literally every bit of space is valuable. Most people don’t really use that space back there, and we’re cramming it up to the ceiling.”
Within the framework of order tracking, clearly designating spots along the production path (“...this is folding table 6, this is machine 112, this is this, this is that...”), while not really a physical change, makes it easier for everyone to follow orders throughout the process, he adds.
“Pickup and delivery does have an impact on your in-store operations,” Simmons says. “Employees started competed for machines with customers, and customers were taking clothes out of the washing machines, so you do need to identify which orders your employees are working on. Our overall goal was to open up at nighttime but it did take time before that made sense.”
During regular retail hours, rather than setting aside specific machines for walk-in customers and others for PUD processing, Vlaskamp says The Folde tries to maintain an unused ratio.
“We need more than half of the machines to be unused and open at any given time,” he explains. “So if a loader is loading and the folders are folding slow or we have six folders call out because Grandma’s sick on the same day, that loader needs to not load how he usually would,” says Vlaskamp. “We need to make sure everything is flowing through, so if we got a rush of walk-in retail customers, they could all have a machine.”
Unema says offering PUD hasn’t impacted Brio’s hours of operation, and that self-service customers will always have a place in her laundromat.
“We always prioritize machines for walk-in customers and fit in our machine needs as we see opportunity,” she says. “We will use machines at the end of the day or before we open. The way we process laundry allows for different stages to be done throughout the day, for laundering later in the day.”
And Brio never combines customer clothes, not even using mesh bags, she adds.
“We process laundry as the deadline dictates. When you have a two-day turnaround, you have time to build your day’s laundry list. This auto-prioritizes the process list for attendants. The manager is full-time and performs the audit every morning and again before he leaves the shop.”
Aside from workflow, you can bet that adding PUD will create new managerial stresses, according to Vlaskamp: “Whether your shop is open or closed, you will be thinking about this, or getting calls about this. Employee headaches, customer headaches, equipment headaches, it’s going to extend the hours of you’re thinking about all that.”
But that’s where the added revenue of a popular service can help soften the blow.
While it may seem that everyone is offering pickup and delivery these days, “it’s not too late to get into the game,” says Simmons.
“A lot of people are hesitant because they see more competition than ever. Before, if you did a search on Google for ‘laundry pickup and delivery near me,’ you might have seen one or two people. Now, you’ve got pages and pages of responses. And that can be intimidating.
“We have more competition than ever ... but we’re also making more money than ever. It’s a growing market. That’s what to keep in mind. It’s a growing market, so even if there are more people playing ball there, it’s because they’re making money. So, I would just get in.”
“Demand is out there. It’s relatively low-risk to start and try out, if you’re asking me, compared to years ago when you had to educate a whole customer base,” Vlaskamp says. “People are searching for this. The Google trends on the searches are crazy right now. People are actively seeking this out, so a laundromat owner that wants to test it out isn’t going to have to spend a whole ton of money marketing to it.
“Get a driver, get a folder and try to get a few orders. You should be able to get four or five orders to see if you like it or not.” ACO
(Photo: ©Wisky/Depositphotos)Watch for Part 2 arriving in the May issue!
All businesses must have signs, but laundromats rely on them more than many others.
Mat owners are reminded of this on a regular basis. It seems that often a problem comes up because the customer didn’t read the signs/instructions, or didn’t understand what the sign was saying. How can some one sit in a laundromat for two hours every time they come, yet not read the signs?
Even though many customers don’t read signs, you still need to post signs for their guidance, so you can minimize problems. At the very least, you need signs to point to after a problem occurs. You need to show that the problem happened because they didn’t fol low directions. Just say it in a polite and respectful
way. If you humiliate the customer, don’t expect them to come back.
For instance, if a customer complains that her laundry was removed from her machine while she was out shop ping, just explain your policy to show why her laundry was removed, and point to the posted sign that reads, You must be here when your machine stops or your clothes will be removed for the next customer
Isn’t it better if more customers would read, under stand, and follow your signage so these problems don’t come up in the first place?
The question is, why don’t customers read signs and what can be done about it?
Your signs should be pleasing to the eye. A good sign shop can give you ideas on the sign style, materials, col ors, etc., you may want.
You should also know which mat signs are useful, and which are not. To get ideas, do an internet search for “laundromat signs.” You’ll find every mat sign topic out there!
You’ll also find that the vast majority of mat signs are negative, which is necessary for some topics. But try to keep them polite and instructional rather than confrontational.
If you are going to use the word “don’t,” then once in a while try adding “please” in front of it.
You want customers to have a good experience in your mat, and signs can help … to a point.
What do I mean by a well-worded sign? It’s an easyto-read sign that gets your message across clearly, briefly and politely. It may even be a little entertaining.
Well-worded signs:
• Help customers (and your mat) avoid problems
• Free up your attendants’ time
• Educate and instruct new customers
• Protect people by warning them of hazards or risks
• Help identify equipment, change machines, rest rooms, etc.
• Help customers who can’t read English if they are made bilingual and feature some graphics
• Announce various events, sales and promotions
Ideally, you want to instruct, enlighten, inform and educate people about laundry.
In advertising, feelings are bigger than words. People often make decisions based on emotion instead of logic.
Signs can also produce subliminal mes sages, those that reach the brain below the threshold of consciousness.
Did you know that retail stores sell ing analog clocks (with hour and minute hands) almost always display the ones they have for sale with the time set at 10 minutes after 10 so the clock look like it’s smiling?
So, take a cue from the big shots. The end goal in creating your store’s signs is to help people feel good about your mat.
Choice of Languages — Be aware of the most common languages in your area besides English, because you may want to make some signs in that language. Graphics and photos also help. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and can help people who can’t read English.
Sign Location — The main purpose of outdoor signs is to attract attention to your mat, identify it, and to create an inviting feeling about your business. Keep the word count as short as possible so motorists speeding by will have time to read your sign.
Indoor signs are used more to instruct
and show store policies.
Do-It-Yourself Signs — If you make a sign using paper and Magic Marker, you could turn off more people than you think.
A handwritten sign is only good for emergencies. It implies laziness, and a busi ness that’s too cheap to offer their custom ers attractive, professional signs.
That said, I personally printed lots of
paper signs created on my computer when I was running my stores, then laminated them so they would last a few months— even years in some cases—before they would start to look faded.
Internet retailers offer good thermal lam inators for less than $50. The money is in the laminating pouches (similar to printers and ink). Try using some colored paper to brighten things up.
If you really want to push something important inside the mat, you can choose to print up, say, 12 laminated paper signs and put them at key locations, ensuring that more people will have the opportunity to read them. You can also choose to use fluorescent (hot pink?) paper for those really important messages that you want to stand out.
Technically, any sign that a customer doesn’t read is useless. Therefore, your signs should be brief, clear, and easy to understand.
If 10% or more of the residents in your market don’t understand English, at least some of your signs should be bilingual. And did you know that, according to Forbes, roughly 8 million people in the United States are functionally illiterate? Logos, graphics and photos can help you commu nicate with people who can’t read English.
Logos help your mat’s name and identity stand out in people’s memories (I put my logo on many of my store signs). A logo should be easy for any human to recognize and understand in any language.
Graphics and photos spice up your signs, while adding foreign languages helps nonEnglish-speaking people.
They all increase the number of people who will understand your signs.
Any sign that is old and faded, ripped, or otherwise not in great shape should be replaced. Many mats neglect their signs.
If you allow political signs of any kind in your windows, I think you’re asking for trouble. There will always be a percentage of customers who will be offended if you
post a political sign.
If your signs are in a dark location, cus tomers are less likely to read them, so make sure there’s enough light to catch their eye.
And, of course, sometimes the public simply ignores signs. No Loitering and Change is for Customers Only are two that are ignored practically every day, but you must have them. Adding the word “please” to these signs isn’t a great idea because it implies weakness.
The best way to increase compliance with these signs? Place a surveillance cam era conspicuously right above them.
I posted a sign outside my store’s dropoff window that read, Drop Your Pants Here. That’s a good example of a sign that entertains. It was so popular that people were walking up and taking pictures of it at least a few times a week, making me think that a lot of buzz was created.
And the arrow just below the text helped direct attention into the store.
In New York City, we had a location where thousands of cars and people passed every day, but our mat was slightly out of view from most of the traffic. So, I placed a guy on the nearest corner, holding a large sign on a pole. The sign on one side was in English, the other side in Chinese.
Talking about bilingual again, I posted signs inside the store that displayed wash er instructions in English and Chinese. I brought a copy of the English sign to a local Chinese sign shop for translation. I imagine you can find sign shops in your area that can do translations.
I also posted signs that reminded custom
ers to check their pockets for items like crayons, pens or lip balm before wash ing them, along with tips about sepa rating whites from colors and proper machine loading. Customer complaints that my machine had ruined their laun dry dropped dramatically after those signs went up.
Posting a stain removal chart that carries your store name and encourages customers to take home their own copy can get your business in people’s homes for years. I made such a chart on a nice, smooth card stock back in the ’80s. Today, the instructions would be updat ed to include newer tips, such as more peroxide, acetone, citrus cleaners, etc.
Outdoor signs that are well-lighted often stand out. The contrast from darkness to a lighted sign can really draw eyeballs!
And not all signs have to be for your customers. I posted a trio of signs in the back room that served to educate my staff about my expectations and as
Sometimes you can post signs that help your customers and you. Check out these signs that remind customers to check their pockets for items like crayons, pens or lip balm before washing them, along with tips about separating laundry loads and proper machine loading.
reminders of the tasks that had to be completed each day. I thought it helped a great deal when my crew could easily refer to the sign for my policies.
There are no doubt some individual signs that you’ll create yourself because of their unique content. But for stan dard messages, you can buy ready-made signs from most mat distributors and parts suppliers. They do seem to cover most mat topics, and last for a few years before showing their age.
Lastly, avoid clutter. Post only rele vant signs that work well. Remove signs that are dirty, faded, or have outdated messages. Too much clutter makes peo ple not want to read anything. ACO
Paul Russo owned and operated mul tiple Laundromats in New York City for more than 40 years before retiring in 2018. You’re welcome to direct any questions or comments for Russo to Editor Bruce Beggs at bbeggs@atmags. com.
Distributor Statewide Laundry Equipment (SLE) recently honored Orlando-based consultant Rusty Parks with an Industry Service Award recognizing his exemplary dedication to customer service and industry improvement. Parks has represented Speed Queen equipment in Central Florida since 1980.
He was recognized for 40 years of integrity, expertise and excel lence, SLE says. His loyal following of repeat customers is a testa ment to his service.
Parks has made significant contributions toward instilling the company’s vision, and SLE strongly believes that this award rec ognition will inspire all his team members to emulate his success.
Miami-based distributor EVI Industries Inc. reports that it has taken steps to acquire Raleigh, North Carolina-based Consolidated Laundry Equipment and Columbia, South Carolinabased Central Equipment Co. (collectively “CLE”). Terms of the deal, subject to certain closing conditions, were not released.
Adding CLE, distributors of commercial laundry products and providers of related technical installation and maintenance services, would strengthen EVI’s market share position in the Southeast, with over $90 million in revenue derived from thousands of indus trial, on-premise, vended, and multi-family laundry customers.
For almost 20 years, CLE has operated under the ownership and management of Billy Kincaid, consistently increasing its revenues, profitability and market share, EVI says. For the 12 months ended Nov. 30, CLE generated revenues of approximately $17 million, derived from the sale of equipment, parts and supplies, and the performance of installation and maintenance services.
Once the deal closes, CLE will operate as an EVI subsidiary under its current name and from its present locations and will con tinue to be led by Kincaid and CLE’s existing employees.
Maytag® Commercial Laundry has selected three store owners from various parts of the country as the award winners in its Replace Today for $10K contest.
Laundromat owners who purchased Maytag replacement equip ment between Jan. 1 and July 31, 2021, were eligible to participate
in the contest for a chance to win $10,000. Entrants submitted their business cases and a panel of independent judges declared the winners. Recipients are:
• Charles Hinkel, president of TC Wash Inc., Rochester, New York.
His goal was to replace a combination of washers and dryers with new, larger-capacity machines to reduce utility and mainte nance costs of older machines, increase vend prices and improve store promotion to attract new customers.
“I increased my laundry capacity in the store while giving customers bigger machines, which is the current trend and what customers want,” Hinkel wrote in his contest entry. “All while increasing our vend price, which makes the laundromat financially viable long-term.”
• Patricia Lawrence, owner and manager of The Washboard Laundry, Salt Lake City, Utah
Her goal was to improve the laundry experience for customers and remain competitive with newer stores in the area, plus reduce utility expenses and increase vend prices with new equipment and larger capacities.
“We want to improve the laundry experience for our neigh borhood,” Lawrence commented in her entry. “By upgrading our laundry equipment to newer, more dependable and efficient machines, it lets our customers know that we care about them. You don’t stay in business for over 40 years without loyal customers.”
• Jack Wilson, owner of Polly’s Laundromat, Philadelphia
His goal was to replace a combination of 13-year-old washers and dryers to improve energy efficiency and reduce maintenance and repair costs.
“I believe when the cost of repair is higher than the value of the asset, you should replace it,” Wilson wrote in his entry.
“We take great pride in the fact that so many laundromat own ers depend on our brand,” says Matt Conn, global director, com mercial laundry product development and
Corporation. “Laundromat owners have shared the positive impact new machines may have on their business, including reduced utility expense and increased revenue potential.”
If you attend one industry event in 2022, The Clean Show should be it! Discover new products, exciting technology, and groundbreaking research in commercial laundering, dry-cleaning, and the textile service industry as exhibitors from around the world showcase their latest innovations. Registration opens this winter. Start making your plans to attend!
The new ESD® Trident payment terminal provides the most technologically advanced acceptance for all payment options.
The PCI compliant unit is EMV chip enabled to provide for the highest level of card acceptance. It also supports NFC contactless credit card usage with tap and go convenience.
This new terminal supports ESD® generic and store branded loyalty magnetic stripe cards. This terminal will support the various loyalty card marketing plans and features of the ESD® card systems.
The ESD® CyclePayTM App can also be utilized with the reader to provide today’s consumer with mobile payment capabilities.
