Pickup laundry business

[pipedream2017]

I read the thread 100 unsexy business ideas and I thought I would share an idea.

People hate doing laundry.. behold a laundry pick up service which would pick your washing up, clean it and deliver it back to you folded.

Opinions?

 

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[superb]

Not a new idea (not in my locale anyway). How could it be done better, faster, and/or cheaper? Are there other services that could be "bundled" with this service that would add value?

Most people do not like doing laundry but I suspect that the only people who would pay for this service (unless it was really cheap) would have some measure of disposable income. That's not a bad thing, just know who your customers would likely be.

 

[pipedream2017]

Not a new idea (not in my locale anyway). How could it be done better, faster, and/or cheaper? Are there other services that could be "bundled" with this service that would add value?

Most people do not like doing laundry but I suspect that the only people who would pay for this service (unless it was really cheap) would have some measure of disposable income. That's not a bad thing, just know who your customers would likely be.

Not saying I want to do this idea, but I can see it having potential

 

[garyfritz]

If you pursue this, you should also look into providing commercial laundry services. My son has a part-time job folding laundry at a place like that. They have several clients (restaurant tablecloths and napkins, sheets from a massage therapist, things like that) that account for the bulk of their business. One of their biggest clients is something related to oilfield work. They have a specific washer/dryer set up for that client (probably charged the client for them) because of the nasty/greasy stuff the client provides.

 

[sparechange]

Already fastlane, I worked for a cleaning company that does 100m+ picking up dirty laundry

The idea doesn't matter, its the execution

 

[Bekit]

People hate doing laundry.. behold a laundry pick up service which would pick your washing up, clean it and deliver it back to you folded.

Opinions?

Couple of things you'd have to take into account:

• How big is your service area? Would you drive 25 miles to pick up someone's laundry, and then 25 miles to drop it back off? That's 100 miles total for both round trips.
• Can you pay for the transportation expenditure and still make a profit while keeping your prices low enough to get a high volume of clients?
• Can you get a big enough volume of clients within your service area to do a bunch of pickups and dropoffs on a single, logical "route"? (One way to gauge this would be to look up the approximate volume of monthly searches in your area for keywords such as "laundry service," "laundry pickup," etc.)
• Can you divorce your time from your money doing this?
• Dry cleaners in my area already offer home pickup & dropoff options. How would your service be different from that?
• How much would you have to invest in machines and employees to get the basics of your service started? How many clients would you need to pay off that investment, break even, and turn a profit as you continue the business?

I'm sure there are lots more things that you'd have to consider, these are just the ones that come to the top of my mind.

Already fastlane, I worked for a cleaning company that does 100m+ picking up dirty laundry

The idea doesn't matter, its the execution

This makes a lot of sense to me. I'm guessing this was a commercial laundry service?

For home laundry, I wonder if there's a way that you could harness the power of Uber to do the pickups & dropoffs? Kind of like an add-on to Uber Eats...

 

[CPisHere]

I pay for this already. I did some rough math, and if they are doing it out of their house they probably make $20-$30/hour after considering travel to pickup/drop-off. Not a bad hustle for a stay at home mom, which is what the people we use are doing I think.

 

[Boo]

I like this business model a lot and it's easy to see how you could quickly add additional services like a laundromat, commercial services etc. A company near me doesn't pick up in the way that most companies do, instead, it operates as a mail service. Customers bag up their laundry and drop it into a large vending machine essentially and from there it's picked up along with all of the other customers and then it's dropped back there later. Condos and apartment buildings like the company put the machines in their buildings free of charge as a helpful service.