Running the Store
Cleaning Shop
The first order of business is for you or staff to clean your store thoroughly, at least once a day. This will take about two to three hours a day. You or your employee will need to do the following:
- Mop the floors
- Wide down the machines
- Clean the soap dispensers in your front-load washers
- Wash off the folding tables
- Clean the restroom
- Empty rubbish bins
- Wash the windows.
The best time to clean is after customers have gone – that way you or your staff can clean more efficiently.
You’ll also avoid the risk of customers slipping on wet floors or tripping over cleaning equipment. If you have a large or busy laundry, you may find that it requires cleaning twice a day.
You can wipe down the machines and folding tables easily while customers are in the store, but save the floor for after they’ve left or for a quiet period of the day.
Collecting coins
One chore you’re not likely to delegate to an employee to collecting money from coin operated machines. You’ll need to empty each machine, preferably daily. You’ll want to pull (take out the coins) from one type of machine at a time so you can determine how often your customers are using each type of machine, starting with the top-loaders.
Count these coins and record how much money you made on this type of machine, follow the same procedure with the front-loaders and the dryers.
For recording purposes, you should draw up a chart with seven rows, one for each day of the week, and columns for each type and size of equipment: Top-loaders, front-loaders, dryers and vending machines. Then record on the chart how much money you withdrew every day.
Stocking vending machines
The last bit of daily business in the shop is restocking the vending machines. If you rent a cold drink and snack vending machine, make sure it is full every day. In South Africa, the location of the laundry plays a vital part in whether or not you would have vending machines in the shop.
“It all depends on the retail set up of the businesses that operate in the centre or close vicinity of your laundry. You don’t want to encroach on other businesses, especially if you operate a coin operated laundry.
If there is a supermarket near the shop, you don’t need to sell washing powder or softener. Coffee shops and video stores in the centre eliminate the need for a vending machines of this nature in the shop’, says Lehmbeck who speaks from personal experience as she also owns Laundry XACTIX in Randburg.
Bookkeeping & Management
When you’re done with daily in-shop duties, you’ll need to take care of some additional office work. Many laundry owners do this at home, though some may find it easier to work at the laundromat if there is enough space for a small office or work area.
You’ll need to take care of accounting and track equipment usage by customers who frequent the laundry. It is important to record how often each type of machine is used so that you can determine if you’ve got the right mix of equipment.
For example, if you find that front-loaders are getting six turns a day (the number of times a machine is used each day) and your top-loaders only two, you may need to add front-loaders and remove some top-loaders. Your customers are likely waiting for front-loaders and possibly going elsewhere, so you could be losing money.