The 6 most frequent mistakes
1. Choosing premises on rent alone
A bad location will never be profitable, however cheap it is. Prioritise visibility, footfall and proximity to residential areas.
2. Under-sizing the machinery
You open with the bare minimum to save money but, in peak season, queues form and you lose customers. Plan for growth from day one.
3. Cutting corners on chemicals
A "cheap" detergent means poorly washed laundry, complaints and lost customers. The real cost per cycle is higher.
4. Forgetting preventive maintenance
Without periodic Machine Clean, the washing machine builds up scale and odour-causing deposits. By the time the problem appears, you have already lost customers.
5. Not analysing the competition
You open without knowing the prices or services of nearby competitors. The result: you are priced out of the market or you dump your prices.
6. Neglecting customer experience
Interior cleanliness, lighting, Wi-Fi, comfortable seating. Perceived quality matters as much as the wash itself.
Other mistakes that show up in the first few weeks
- Opening without automatic dosing: dosing by hand, or leaving customers to add the product, gives inconsistent washes and makes it impossible to know the real cost per cycle.
- Not testing with real loads: a washer that works fine empty can produce too much foam or too little fragrance with a load of towels or workwear.
- Confusing instructions: if customers do not understand how to choose a programme or pay, they get it wrong, complain and do not come back.
- Running out of product: a pump drawing from an empty container leaves washes without detergent. Always keep a spare container of each product.
- Decanting products into unlabelled containers: you lose the safety information on the CLP label and the risk of mixing products goes up.
Checklist for the week before opening
- ✓Every pump calibrated with a measuring cylinder and logged on its record sheet (how to do it).
- ✓Test washes on every machine, with different loads, checking foam, rinsing and fragrance.
- ✓Initial stock in the back room according to your consumption calculation, with a spare of each product.
- ✓Safety data sheets accessible and containers in their storage area (what they must include).
- ✓Signage with clear instructions next to the washers and at the payment system.
- ✓Phone numbers for the machine service engineer and the chemical supplier on display.
If you have already opened and something is not right
Most of these mistakes can be put right without closing. Start with whatever tells you fastest what is going on:
- 1
Read the complaints and reviews
Odours, stains, rough laundry or queues point to different causes: dosing, maintenance or machinery.
- 2
Measure the real dose
With the measuring cylinder, pump by pump. A dose that has drifted explains a lot of problems with results and costs.
- 3
Run a maintenance wash
If there are odours, an empty wash with Machine Clean removes scale and the sources of bad smells. More causes in bad-smelling laundry.
- 4
Compare the cost per cycle
Divide what you spend on chemicals by the cycles on the payment system. If it rises for no reason, something is over-dosing.
For the full process from scratch, go back to how to set up a self-service laundry.
Planning your first opening?
Pre-opening technical consultancy to make sure you avoid these mistakes.
B2B PRICE · MANUFACTURER
Shall we send you our detergent and softener price list?
Price per pack size for self-service laundries and recommended dosage. We will reply to your request.