Opening your first self-service laundry

What you need for your first opening

As an entrepreneur in the self-service laundry sector, the decisions you take in the first few months determine the profitability of the years that follow. Choosing professional chemical products from the outset avoids hidden costs, complaints and breakdowns.

What Instaquim brings you

• Pre-opening site visit · sizing and dosing matched to water hardness
• Automatic dosing system: sale, installation and calibration; check terms with your account manager
• On-site initial training for staff or for you
• Complete product range: detergent + fabric softener + maintenance
• Ongoing technical service (phone + site visits)
• Full technical documentation for regulatory compliance

Recommended opening pack

Your chemical timeline before opening

In many projects the chemicals are decided late, once the premises are already fitted out. If you plan them alongside everything else, you avoid extra building work and last-minute rushes:

1. 1

   When you sign for the premises

   Talk to the chemical supplier at the same time as the machinery supplier. That way the technical visit can review the floor plan and the water hardness in the area.

2. 2

   During the fit-out

   Ask the installer for connection points for the dosing pumps next to each washer, and for a space for the containers that is ventilated and out of customers' way.

3. 3

   Before opening

   Calibration of each pump with a measuring cylinder, test washes with different loads, and training so you know how to change a container and check a dose.

4. 4

   The first few weeks

   Compare the product used with the cycles on the payment system and adjust your order. This is the time to correct a dose, not after a whole summer.

Chemicals in your business plan

In a self-service laundry, chemicals account for 8–15 % of turnover. It is not the biggest cost, but it is one of the few you can control once you are open: it depends on the dosing being properly calibrated and on choosing concentrated products. In your plan, treat it as a cost per cycle rather than a fixed line.

To fit it in with the rest of the numbers, see the monthly costs of a laundry, whether it is profitable and how much detergent you will need.

How to choose your detergent and softener pairing

• Bluegold with Blue Soft: a concentrated enzymatic detergent and a softener with microcapsules, designed to be used together and leave a long-lasting fragrance.
• Eco Wash with Eco Soft: if you want a laundry using EU Ecolabel products; Eco Wash holds licence ES-CAT/039/002.
• Biogold Q: a sanitising enzymatic detergent, suited to self-service laundries with two dispensers.

Choose a pairing and stick with it: customers associate the smell of their laundry with your shop.

Common questions from first-time owners

Do I need to know about chemistry to run the laundry?

No. You need to know how to change a container, check a dose with the measuring cylinder and recognise the signs of a problem: foam, odours or complaints. That is what the initial on-site training covers.

What if something goes wrong in the first month?

Call the technical service: the technical response comes in under 4 hours and you have an assigned account manager. Before you call, check that the container is not empty and that the tube is not kinked.