How to open a mini-laundry?

Currently, the mini-laundries business in Russia is at the development stage, being a promising direction with unlimited opportunities for growth and development due to the low level of competition.

It is worth noting that the market of laundry services market was most developed in the Soviet era, primarily due to the fact that residential buildings were not connected to water supply, as well as due to the shortage of goods in the country: people did not have opportunity to buy a home washing machine and linen was handed over to laundries. As long as the new economic system evolved, household washing machines with automatic control found ready market, as they simplified considerably the laborous washing process and made it easier thanks to the expanded capabilities and various functions. Personal service complexes were closed due to the lack of demand.

The current trend is that young families, uncomfortable about clothes self-washing, turn to laundry services again. One of the reasons for this phenomenon is the cost of laundry at home.

How much does it cost to wash and iron clothes at home? Let us calculate.

Herewith, the list price of straight (bed sheets) linen with ironing is 75 rubles/kg on average, textures linen – 80 rubles/kg. Therefore, washing in laundry will cost 193 rubles/week (772 rubles/month). This option will save more than 8 hours of time and about 350 rubles of the family budget per month!

In a context of demand for laundries from the business community, mini-laundries are the best option.

It is not difficult to find clients for such business: as noted above, laundry, drying and ironing services are most popular among young people, as well as among nonresident students, residents of rented apartments, not having household washing machine or who need to wash oversized things, and people having no time or opportunity to wash and iron things at home. 

In addition, hotels, boarding houses, hostels and fitness centers located near your company can be clients of this type of laundry.

Thus, assured of business profitability, you make a decision to open a mini-laundry. What do you need for this? 

STEP 1. COLLECTION OF NECESSARY DOCUMENTS.

The first thing to do is to register the company with the tax service­, choosing the optimum form of ownership for youself. Then, contact the Russian Agency for Health and Consumer Rights, collect a set of necessary documents, including a permit from the sanitary and epidemiological service and the fire department. To do this, you need to align the conditions of premises of the future mini-laundry with the legal rules and regulations.

STEP 2. SEARCH OF PREMISE.

It is efficient to place the laundry walking distance to dormitories or residential buildings. You need a room with a minimum production area of 35 m2 to implement a business idea (you can either buy or rent it). It is important to take into account the sanitary and hygienic requirements and construction standards at repair (a full list of documents is available on the Rospotrebnadzor website). The main requirements are 30-60 kW electricity supply, supply and exhaust ventilation and utilities: cold and hot water supply, sewerage. Taking into account all necessary standards, we pass to the next step.

STEP 3. EQUIPMENT CHOICE.

It is important to fix upon the future production volume and types of laundry when choosing equipment for mini-laundry. Thus, the capacity of mini-laundry is from 100 kg per shift (8 hours). Commonly washed laundry are straight (bed sheets) linen, shaped (clothes), terry (towels, dressing gowns), sometimes linen of delicate fabrics and outerwear (down jackets).

«Vyazma» offers small load industrial equipment for mini-laundries, different to household equipment in reliability, high productivity and economical efficiency.

3D layout of a mini-laundry with «Vyazma» equipment

Option to equip a mini-laundry with «Vyazma» equipment

It's worth to remark that many first-time entrepreneurs purchase semi-professional washing machines with short service life when opening a mini-laundry, which leads to their rapid wear and tear. Moreover, in case of malfunction you pay the total cost of repair, since warranty service for household washing machines used in production is not provided. As a result, it is as the proverb says, «Buy nice or buy twice!». It is much more profitable to purchase industrial laundry equipment, because the service life of such machines is more than 10 years daily used!

Excellent assistants for you to achieve perfect washing results in your mini-laundry are professional washer -extractors «Vyazma» with a load of 7 or 10 kg of laundry. 

These models are notable for high-speed final extraction, allowing to feed the washed laundry directly to the dryer, avoiding the centrifuge. Washing Machines LO-7 and LO-10 are must-have in modern laundries, they are easy to operate, have a high degree of reliability and automation.

Professional dual machines VSSK-10 and VS-13x2 fit perfectly into the concept of a small laundry. Design solutions of these models provide small laundries with high performance at minimum floor space, reducing initial investment in leased or purchased premises. 

When spinning laundry, the drum speed in this model comes up to 950 rpm. Despite this, the machine is very stable due to independent drum suspension. Another feature is the pump, but not a drain valve, i. e. water is drained into sewerage not spontaneously, but forced. VSSK-10 has possible connection of dosing pumps for liquid detergents, and the residual moisture sensor, automatically stopping the drying cycle once the set parameters are met, as a standard equipment.

Nonetheless, «Vyazma» professional equipment for mini-laundries proved itself in action. Last year, the «Town dairy factory» of the town of Kirovo-Chepetsk purchased several washer-extractor sets at once for commercial laundry. According to the company employees:

VSSK-10 is very easy to operate, multifunctional and able to wash and dry at the same time. Quality of washing is perfect, laundry is spinned and shaked, so that it is more convenient to pull it out of the door after washing. The machine is quiet, thus it seems fair to say that it made a good showing!»

Dual drying machine VS-13x2 with a 13 kg load of laundry is an ideal solution to ensure cleanliness of laundry within limited space.

 

«This configuration is very convenient for limited laundry space and allows separation of laundry flows if necessary, for example, bed linen and terry towels, with different drying time»

In general, dual machines are equipped with easy-to-use controllers, making it possible to set up and save the washing and drying programs you need. Controller of the drying machine has 5 preset programs and user can program 25 programs more. The drying program can be paused: for example, in order to open the door, touch laundry with your hands and decide yourself whether it needs further drying. The dryer continues running the program once the door is closed.

Additional to washing machines and dryers, you need ironing equipment to organize a mini-laundry. These can be ironing rollers with the ironing width of 1000/1200/1400/1600/2000 mm. Characteristics of these models are the chrome plating of the ironing tray and the Springpress spring shaft winding, ensuring even pressing of laundry to the ironing chute over its entire surface, smoothing out possible bumps.

For laundry business with a higher initial budget, one can purchase an ironing calender designed for drying and ironing of straight laundry with 50% residual moisture. Vyazma machine-building plant completed improvement of ironing calenders this year. The new «Vega» product range is complemented by a compact-size ironing calender with an ironing area width of 1400 mm. VK-1424 calendar is equipped with automatic microcomputer control: the controller itself chooses the temperature maintenance method, targeted at maximum economy.  

Quality of ironing has improved substantially thanks to chromate coating of the ironing shaft and metal extractors replaced with fluoroplast ones.

Therefore, in case your laundry is targeted at provision of services at a highly professional level, purchase of an ironing calender will be a profitable business investment.

Do not forget about the auxiliary equipment designed for storing and transporting of laundry: tables, racks and trolleys.

As a result, Russian business has an opportunity to get inexpensive industrial equipment from a domestic manufacturer in order to arrange a «turnkey» mini-laundry thanks to a wide array of «Vyazma» equipment. The plant ensures support everywhere in the Russian Federation!

You will always get assistance from the specialists and representatives of Vyazma machine - building plant in regard of a mini-laundry arrangement of any productive capacity and the choice of equipment. Refer to our website, «Laundry options» section, for recommendations on equipment fitting, as well as the ready-made 3D models of laundries of various capacities.

STEP 4. RECRUITMENT.

Once you completed the documents, chose a room and purchased the necessary equipment, think about the staff. In this regard, take into account the work schedule of the mini-laundry, calculate the volume of orders. Given that most laundries of this format work daily for 14 hours, it makes sense to open several vacancies to ensure proper business operation.

STEP 5. DRAFTING THE LIST OF SERVICES AND THEIR PRICING.

Take into account the following parameters to calculate the self-cost: water (washing), electricity (washing, drying, ironing), sewerage, cost of washing powders or liquid detergents, as well salary of employees and depreciation costs.

STEP 6. LAUNCH OF ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN AND LAUNDRY OPENING.

After the first few months of operation you will realize that your new company turned to be a successful business idea, which allowed you to create a business with stable income with use of relatively small investments.
And your business will pay off in less than 2 years with «Vyazma» industrial equipment!