The word “location” is generally defined as “a particular place confined to a definite spot or geographic position.” Our definition is slightly different: Where can we build a laundry that makes money?
Let’s start with demographics. Choose an area where the population contains a majority of low- to middle-income families. Also, the number of family members per household is very important; more kids mean more pounds of laundry, which means more dollars.
What’s more, look for older housing, which likely doesn’t have proper accommodations for residential washers and dryers.
Next, look for a high-density location. But remember that there is a definite relationship between how many people are in your marketplace and how large your store needs to be. All stores have peak hours and peak days; if you can’t accommodate your customers during these high-traffic times, they will go elsewhere.
In addition, try to get the best spot in a good location. The best spot is a free-standing building with plenty of parking on a main street that has a good deal of local traffic. Exposure is constant advertising.
Why a free-standing building? It gives you complete control of parking, signage and multiple entrances. People like to park as close as possible to an entrance.
The second-best locations are small strip centers, which also allow your customers to park close to the building. Generally, they have other businesses that draw local customers to the center, which will help your business. The magic word there is “local.”
If you’re building in a small center, try to build on either end if you can. In most cases, the ends contain additional parking.
Street locations and large shopping centers typically are less than optimum laundry sites. Street locations without parking never reach their full potential and are generally the least desirable to build on. By contrast, large shopping centers draw a lot of customers, but unless you get one of the end units, parking can be a problem. Also, large centers charge quite a bit more rent and a lot of the shoppers are not local.
To summarize, a good location is an area that contains a number of people who will use a coin laundry, and a good spot is a particular place in that area that will accommodate those people in the most convenient way.