5 minute read
MANAGE YOUR LIFE
Drop your trousers
This is literally what you can do with Peters’ Cleaners’ new pods. Mary finds out more and can’t understand why no-one has thought of this before
EVERY HIGH STREET used to have at least one dry cleaner; I’m sure Stamford at one point had four. But times and habits change, as do fabrics. And of course Covid has hastened the demise of many a dry cleaning business. But one person reversing the trend in a big way is Vicky Whiter (the perfect name for an owner of a dry cleaning business), owner of Peters’ Cleaners. She is revolutionising the dry cleaning business with the introduction of the self service cleaning pod.
Established in 1963 Vicky bought the business in 2016. An ex Stamford High School girl, Vicky had spent many years in London working in business development as well as travelling for work. A move to a village near Stamford and the birth of her daughter led her to re-evaluate her life. ‘I wanted more time rather than money so started looking round for something else to do as y current ob was not going to t in with having a young child. My father told me Peters’ Cleaners was up for sale. It had a great reputation and large list of clients but had done very little marketing over the years so I thought it shouldn’t be that hard to turn it around and give it a new lease of life; so I bought it.’
Peters’ Cleaners’ main business is the cleaning, pressing and repairing of businesswear which they have a great reputation for. They clean 65,000 items a year including high end wedding dresses, curtains, bedding and of course, its mainstay, clothing. They also do repairs, ta e up he s replace ips and offer a pressing service (which is very popular). ’We are all about caring for fabric,’ says Vicky, ‘which we do very well and our custo ers appreciate the service we offer
Unfortunately with rising costs it quickly became apparent that there was no money in dry cleaning despite the excellent service and having a large customer base. There wasn’t enough revenue to be able to keep the three shops open and pay staff to clean and run the shop. High Streets were rapidly changing so decisions had to be made about the future of the business.
‘Stamford is a great shop, it’s always busy so will never be closed. But Stamford bucks the trend when it comes to high streets. It is one of the few towns with a destination high street. People will wander into town on a Saturday and are happy to drop their dry cleaning off and then go or a coffee and enjoy the independent shops. But this is very unusual. I closed one shop in Peterborough as it just wasn’t busy enough and did some thinking.’ Vicky dissected the business from top to bottom. Her research quickly showed that the current trend was that people wanted to buy time. They either M ANAGE YOUR LIF E wanted to be working or out enjoying life. If you are busy
commuting to London Monday to Friday and working long hours the last thing you want to do on a Saturday is go into town to drop your dry cleaning off nd you have to do it on a Saturday as by the time you get ho e ro London the shops are shut Then the ollowing aturday you ve got to pic it up again t is ust another chore to add to the list and for many people there are much better things to do nd these people who are regular custo ers are o ten the people who are hopping on the train at a o the obvious thing to do was to open an outlet at eterborough station The station was een but again staffing costs didn t add up as an outlet would need to be open early in the orning and late at night when everyone ca e ho e again ut ic y new she was on to so ething here nventive and entrepreneurial ic y devised a sel service pod ound so ething si ilar in ustralia but they weren t interested in shipping to the U so thought ll develop y own then ter lots of research and planning they opened their rst sel service pod at erpentine reen in eterborough ust be ore the rst loc down nother per ect location as everyone goes to the super ar et and can drop their cleaning at the sa e ti e t literally ta es three seconds to drop your cleaning off and less than to pic it up you can use a cashpoint you can use ic y s pods The custo er drops their cleaning off and the business is noti ed they ve done it The van co es out ro Lincoln oad pic s up the ite s and ta es it back to be cleaned and then returns it to the pod for the customer to pick up - so simple! course ovid put paid to ic y s plans and they ust had to ride out the loc downs Cutting hours during lockdowns and then reopening along with everyone else nd they made it whilst sadly many dry cleaners locally and nationwide didn t decided that a ter the last two years we ve had it was either go large or go ho e nd decided we would go large e have had to sit it out but opened a second pod at the station in une t was going steadily when icron hit ut now is nishing we are pic ing up again and are ust waiting or the trains to run ore regularly and be used ore and they will y plan is that we will have pods within ve years and certain it will happen t is such a si ple concept and so obvious hy on earth hasn t this been done be ore n ti e e pect we will be seeing eters leaners pods everywhere
www.peterscleaners.co.uk
