How to Start a Laundry Business in the Philippines

Starting a laundry shop is sure way to gain a profitable venture, especially now in and around Metro Manila, where the population is booming and jobs are on the fly with no time for handling small weekly chores such as cleaning your clothes.

With the expansion and rise of condominums, people live in small spaces in which they can not fit a washing machine and the same can be said true as well for apartment dwellers cramped up in a single bedroom.

As such, a laundry shop could easily provide a convenient service that handles all the miniscule task of folding and ironing laundry as well. In case you are wanting to start up your own laundry business, here are a few important tips that you should take note of so as to have a successful and profitable venture!

1. Evaluate the Site of your Laundry Shop

The first important tip you need to know is the location of your laundry shop, as this determines your failure or success depending on a variety of factors. For the convenience of your prospective customers, it should be located nearby , especially for those who live in apartments and condominiums. For an extra appeal to customers, establish it where they commonly walk around: the ground floor. This helps expose your business to people who are interested in your service.

Next, study the core social class of your clients. As much as possible, try to give a reason why they should stop by and do business with your laundry shop instead of others. For example, if most of your customers are busy bodies with no time to waste, offer free parking spaces so as to make it easier for them to access your shop for convenience.

2. Ensure you Have the Proper Equipment

There are a number of rules to follow when doing laundry at home, and they still apply for commercial use. Delicates, as the name suggests, are clothers requiring extra care which you can do by buying laundry nets. The laundry nets have varying size from big to small, so ideally you should have a set of them each so as to not have mutiple random sizes that you don’t need.

Another important equipment, the weighing scale provides how many kilograms any given bag of clothes a client has, as this can give you a set rate for a specific amount of weight. Opt for digital scales instead of old-school ones as digital ones provide an easy-to-read and accurate results.

Lastly, don’t buy 2nd-hand washing machines, more so if they are old models, as they have been phased out and you would have a hard time finding spare parts as well as risk damaging the clothes of your customers. On that note, only use commercial machines as they are specifically made for handling bigger loads of laundry every day compared to its common house variety.

3. Remember your Customer’s Standard of Quality

Each and every one of your customer has their own measure of quality, and meeting them is the bare minimum for customer satisfaction. Exceeding their expectations would require more effort but in a long-run results in increased customer loyalty.

Small things such as appropriate usage of soaps and detergents for the different materials of clothes each client has can give you a big approval. Other acts include separating their clothes from others, quickly remembering who owns which, and double-checking if they are missing any clothes can show customers you care about their own possessions. Their loyalty and trust will be gained if you follow through these simple yet powerful acts of concern.

4. Give Incentives for Customers

Sometimes, doing the laundry isn’t enough, maybe your customer is a lazy one, so why not provide door-to-door pick-up and delivery? Or how about dry cleaning as those are rarely provided by laundry shops and the demand for them are mostly from wealthy individuals who live in condominiums.

Additional services can increase convenience for your customers and the likelihood for coming back as a loyal and regular client.

5. Look out for Inefficiencies in your System

There are two types of laundry shops: self-service and the regular staff-care. If you choose to do the former, know that efficiency can help a lot in a business where there is a lot of foot traffic going around.

Placing the washing machine next to the drier would make transferring clothers quicker and reduces the amount of drips on the floor and avoiding any chances of slipping. Another tip is to know how just how much you need for a day’s inventory so as to not waste storage and spoilage past expiration due!

6. Register your Business at the Appropriate Departments

Now that you know where you set up shop, have the right equipment for the job, and have planned how your service will differentiate from others, all you need to do is to register your business! Simply put, just head on to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) for business registration as well as the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) for your business name, trademarks, and logo!