CHICAGO — Washers and dryers are at the core of vended laundry operations but laundromat customers also rely on a larger family of products to help them get their clothes clean.
Laundry equipment and the consumable or complementary items we call supplies have a symbiotic relationship.
For example, washers provide the mechanical action and agitation needed for quality laundering while detergents, bleaches, fabric softeners and other products contribute to the chemistry for cleaning and whitening fabrics.
Beyond the cleaning, carts, laundry bags and hangers make it easier for patrons to move, organize and manage their clothing before and after washing and drying.
By partnering with supply businesses, laundry owners can ensure they have a steady repository of these essential products and the ability to procure them quickly, enabling them to consistently serve their customer base.
POPULAR SELLERS
From its origins over 65 years ago in the family garage, California-based Sudsy Vending Supplies has grown into a local and national supplier of coin vend, retail, janitorial and wash-and-fold supplies, says Lauri Frietze, who, with sister Karen Wray, are co-partners in the business.
“Starting with tubes of powdered detergents, (we moved) into the wide array of products available today for the modern coin laundry,” Wray adds.
Across the country in New York state, Cleaner’s Supply has been around for 30 years, says President Jeff Schapiro: “We operate two distribution centers, one on the East Coast in New York, one on the West Coast in Nevada. The advantage of this is it allows us to deliver to about 85% of the country in two days or less.”
Vince Hansen, president of Chicago-based Vend-Rite Mfg. Co., has a different perspective on supplies; his company manufactures vending equipment used by self-service laundries to sell detergent and other items in-store to their customers.
“The traditional single-load coin vend boxes that most people relate to a self-service laundry are the most common,” he says of the supplies stocked in Vend-Rite equipment. “During the last seven or eight years, we have seen a major growth in retail-sized products being sold from our vender. These products provide laundry owners with better profit margins and offer laundry customers better value.”
Hansen counts detergents, pretreating agents, stain/spot removers, detergent boosters, liquid fabric softeners, scent boosters, and dryer sheets to reduce static cling as the popular sellers for laundromats and wash/dry/fold operations.
“It depends on the individual laundry and how they plan on supplying the products to their customers,” Wray says of Sudsy’s big sellers. “Whether is it is the single coin vend size or the retail size for the larger vending centers or for sale by attendants.”
“Wash and fold has just become a huge, huge thing for laundromats,” Schapiro says when asked about his company’s hot items. “We carry, certainly, all types of wash-and-fold bags, plastic to nylon. We have an array of bags and it’s kind of become a big sector (for us). We operate our own screen-printing operation on-site, so if [laundries] want the bags custom-printed with their name on it, we can do that.”
SOURCING AND SPEED
In order to build an inventory of products to sell to laundry owners, supply companies must source the items — research and learn about the manufacturers and formulators that make the products — and develop relationships for distribution.
Sudsy Vending Supplies has built long-time relationships with several supply manufacturers whose products it sells, says Frietze.
In sourcing its sizable number of product offerings, Schapiro says that Cleaner’s Supply assesses factors like average lead time for receiving a product from the vendor, their performance consistency, product usage rate and seasonal influences on product availability in deciding if an item is right to add.
“We stock 30,000 products that we carry. Those are not drop-shipped, those are actually stocked in our facility. Managing the inventory is a huge focus for us,” he says. “When our customers call us, they’re not calling us because they’re going to need it in a month or two, they need it now. Having items in stock is critical.”
Whenever new supply items are brought to market, Vend-Rite experiments to determine if they’re suitable to vend from its equipment, Hansen says.
“When I see a new product being marketed in print or televised advertisements, I’ll purchase the item and run some tests to see if the product is vendable,” he says. “If it is, I’ll reach out to the manufacturer and discuss the distribution of the item.”
Coming in Tuesday’s conclusion: Biggest changes, and staying in view and up to date
Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Bruce Beggs at [email protected].
