CHICAGO — A majority of businesses polled in the 2024 American Coin-Op Distributor Survey report their total business sales grew in 2023 when compared to the previous year, a positive sign for the self-service laundry industry.
Sixty percent of distributors who took the annual survey say that their total business sales—including sales of newly constructed vended laundries and replacement business—were higher in 2023 compared to 2022. That’s up three percentage points from the year before.
Fifteen percent of respondents say their 2023 total sales were lower than 2022’s, and 25% say that business was the same or similar compared to the prior year.
As for how distributors expect their 2024 overall sales will compare to those of 2023’s, roughly 47% of those polled are predicting brighter things this year.
Distributors listed in the previous edition of the American Coin-Op Distributors Directory were invited to participate in this year’s unscientific survey, which charts 2023 business and makes comparisons to previous years. In this summary report, percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding.
In Part 1, we examined year-over-year sales, replacement business and new-store construction. Let’s continue:
EQUIPMENT MIX
Are you curious about what types of equipment distributors are installing in new stores across the country? Based on this year’s survey results, American Coin-Op offers the following analysis.
Top Loaders — Nearly 38% of new stores in 2023 had at least one top loader. Shares in past surveys were 39% in 2022, 30% in 2021, 32% in 2020, 33.3% in 2019, and 41% in 2018.
Self-service laundries newly built in 2023 have an average of 2.6 top loaders, compared to averages of 2.5 per new store in 2022, 5.7 per new store in 2021, 2.4 in 2020, 1.9 in 2019, and 3.1 in 2018. (These figures factor in new stores with no top loaders.)
Front Loaders — When it comes to front loaders, vended laundries that were newly built in 2023 have an average of 26.1 machines. This compares to prior front-loader averages of 29.4 in 2022, 27.3 in 2021, 28.5 in 2020, 30.3 in 2019, and 26.5 in 2018.
Among the new stores built last year, 29.4% installed fewer than 20 front loaders and 70.6% installed 20 or more.
Dryer Pockets — Vended laundries that were newly constructed in 2023 have an average of 31.5 dryer pockets. This compares to an average of 32.6 pockets in 2022, 29.5 in 2021, 33.5 in 2020, 34.4 in 2019, and 27.8 in 2018.
Fewer than 20 dryer pockets were installed in 6.7% of new stores built in 2022. The share of newly built stores installing 20 or more pockets was 93.3%.
SURVEYING STORE SIZE
How do you think the new stores built in 2023 compare to earlier builds?
Stores averaging 2,000 square feet or less that were constructed last year account for 20% of the total, while 46.7% average between 2,001 and 3,000 square feet.
These figures compare to the 15.4% of stores measuring 2,000 square feet or less and the 46.2% covering between 2,001 and 3,000 square feet reported for 2022.
The largest newly constructed vended laundry built in 2023, according to the survey results, covers 9,000 square feet, while the smallest measures just 800 square feet.
For 2023, the average newly constructed vended laundry store covers 2,867 square feet, which is nearly 200 square feet smaller than the 3,027-square-foot average of last year’s survey. Other prior averages in recent years have been 2,855 for 2021, 2,845 for 2020, 2,990 for 2019, and 2,948 for 2018.
On average, a newly constructed store sold for $808,500 in 2023 (distributors were asked to exclude the cost of land and building in their calculation). Prior average sales were $593,000 (2022), $421,818 (2021), $429,563 (2020), $497,864 (2019), and $460,238 (2018).
Coming in Tuesday’s conclusion: Recent new-store profiles, other business, and the 2024 performance forecast
Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Bruce Beggs at [email protected].