Kim YazziLet’s face it: laundry is one of the chores that people love to hate. Why? There are several reasons- it requires a lot of apparel to take care of clothes when laundry is done at home; don’t have enough hours to meet the on demands of personal and professional lives; people find it unpleasant. That’s why most of the people drop off the laundry to Laundromat to get the dirty clothes cleaned. The customers enjoy visiting the laundry centers, but to improve the comfort, the industry has experienced a facelift trend.
The old-aged techniques followed by laundry shops are time-consuming and sometimes results in user friction as well.
The whole concept is transformed with technology amalgamation in the laundry business to remove the friction from the customer experiences and make the laundry time-inexpensive and cost-savvy. The $40 billion worth laundry industry is now standing at the cusp of the technology revolution as the on-demand business model makes its way to the laundry business.
The highly fragmented and under capitalized market has witnessed gala changes with increased orders and revenue. Looking at the huge ROI with little capital investment, the smart entrepreneurs in the USA are considering it as a goldmine. Do you have an idea of starting laundry and dry cleaning business in the USA? Still, not sure you will get enough room to grow and compete in the market? If so, we have some facts to convince you:
- The leading on-demand laundry apps like- Cleanly, Rinse, and others are making profits in billions every year.
- The global dry cleaning and laundry service market is expected to reach $180 billion by 2022.
- Asia-Pacific is the largest market followed by the USA and Africa for laundry services.
Now, you are pretty sure that the wash-and-fold service at the push of the button will soon become an integral life of the people. With the small investment, you can open a start laundry business at home, open a grand store, or take a franchise of laundry business to start delivering the doorstep laundry service.
Read more: Cost On Building On-Demand Grocery App Development?
The smart brains who want to step ahead of the trends, they look for building an on-demand laundry app. Well, it’s a good choice to jump on the mobile bandwagon to operate evergreen and recession-proof laundry business. In the event, you want to know how much does it cost to build a laundry app you will get the answer right here.
Before partnering with a laundry mobile app development company, you should know the business model, how to monetize, and how to build the business flawlessly. Let’s dive in!
The business model
- In-store
The local laundry shops can scale the business with the on-demand app where customers themselves drop off the dirty clothes at Laundromats and Kiosk will handle the customer’s details, clothes details, reveal the price of laundry, specify the delivery time, and transactions. It’s considered as the best for the laundry management which increases the laundry process efficiency and customer loyalty through a layer of automation.
- On-site
The well-trained staff with pick-up agents is provided under this model where the customers specify the clothes details, laundry service type, pick-up and drop-off time, and the address to get laundry done. After, pick-up, the customers can track the order status, and regular notifications are sent regarding order status, which delivers good customer experience. It works great for the start-ups who are facing difficulty in attracting new customers and scaling the business. Wash Clubs, Liox Cleaners, and Hamperville are the best instances of it.
- Aggregator
The laundry service providers and the customers are connected through this platform where the users can find the nearest laundryman and place the order for laundry. The pickup agent will come, collect the order, provide it to the respective laundryman, and then concierge collects the clean laundry and drop off at the customer’s doorstep. This model doesn’t require any kind of investment and you can earn a good sum of money as fees from every transaction occurring on the platform.
Once, you are clear with the business model, the next thing to look for is monetization. How your start-up idea can monetize through on-demand app development?
App Monetization Strategies
At first, going with the on-site model, the ongoing expenses include rent, equipment lease, utilities, insurance, supplies, and marketing cost, which costs you around $10k per month. In the metropolitan areas, due to intense competition you cannot charge more than $1 per shirt, and additional fees for the premium services such as stain removal, replacing missing buttons, or making repairs can be charged.
Read more: On-demand laundry business: risks, future challenges and how to solve it
Initially, you may find it difficult to see profits. When you managed to get an active customer base, the revenue will exceed your expenses and you can earn around $300 per day. Later, you can scale your business with more stores in different areas where opportunities are viewed.
In the marketplace model (Aggregator), the start-ups don’t require to pour in money other than app development, which costs you around $15k (One-time fee). The subscription fee can be charged from the registered laundrymen and a fee is set for in-app payment.
As the customer base will increase, the ROI will automatically surge. The customers can be made pay extra for the additional services like- get the laundry ahead of the time at an extra $5 or delivery fee for the laundry order under $20. Placing advertisements (But don’t overdo) can be another option to make bundles.
Conclusion
The rapid urbanization, increased mobile penetration, and busy lifestyles have created a lucrative opportunity for the startuppers to make bundles without spending bundles. In the USA, the entrepreneurial minds can carve the niche with the right business plan followed by a series of actions as the laundry service market is on a path of steady growth.
Consider an example of a cleanly app that has gained immense success with $3 million as revenue in a matter of seven years just after raising millions in seed funding and later in series in the USA. With the simplified process of getting the laundry done, the app is topping the charts.
It’s a sign laundry business is profitable in the USA. If you have a cleaning and laundry business idea, then don’t hang fire to shape it into a reality because there is a huge room to grow, prosper, and leapfrog the competition. All the best!
My two cents: If you have tried the laundry business idea with on-demand laundry app development, we would love to hear the challenges and the success you cherished on this journey. Still, you are unable to address all the problems alone, get connected with our team to resolve the issues.
Himanshu Patel
