For too long now, retail laundries have been dubbed only as more professional alternatives to mom-and-pop stores for laundry and dry cleaning. But these businesses – with scores of franchisees – have diversified their services, the nature of garments they service, even their geographies.
This densification of the business comes from a deep understanding of what their customers want, down to the individual preferences of each customer. Also well analysed is how these wants have become needs, and how these needs will evolve and expand in the coming years.
Laundry and dry cleaning for the b2c segment are now but a part of what retail laundries do. They are reaching out to businesses, to people’s non-garment items, to people in other countries. But have equipment manufacturers and suppliers been able to keep up with what they need?
In this story, two leaders of the retail laundry space map out the future of the retail laundry business.
1) Can micro laundromats and macro machines go hand in hand?
2) Wanted: Programmable, low-cost wet cleaning machines