9 years ago I was meeting with my accountant to discuss starting a dry cleaning route business and get his opinion on the idea. When I told him I planned on opening 5 dry cleaning routes spread between two cities that would offer free pick-up and delivery he nearly laughed me out of his office. Lucky for me I didn’t listen to his negative comments. Fast forward a few years, I was having lunch with the same accountant and he admitted he had been wrong about offering a dry cleaning route service and almost as good as him admitting he was wrong, he also bought lunch. Unfortunately many dry cleaners have felt the same way as my accountant did and passed on the opportunity to start their own dry cleaning routes, boy was that a mistake.
I a month or two ago I was on the phone with a gentleman who sells supplies to dry cleaners as well as dry cleaning route owners. I asked if he noticed any trends between the dry cleaning businesses that were doing well and the ones that were struggling. He replied that he had in fact noticed a trend, the companies that owned dry cleaning routes or did wholesale work for dry cleaning route owners were doing well but many of the companies who did not own routes or do any wholesale work were struggling. This supplier was painting with a broad brush here but just like my supplier friend I’ve found the same thing. The people I’ve spoken with that own routes are not seeing the same kind of downturn in business that those who just own dry cleaners are experiencing. That begs the question…
Why Are Dry Cleaning Route Owners Having More Success Than Dry Cleaning Owners?
Simple really when set-up correctly routes are extremely profitable. As a route owner you have the ability to service the best most exclusive neighborhoods without incurring the premium costs a normal dry cleaning store would pay to service the same neighborhood. In fact it costs exact same amount of money to service a premium neighborhood as it does to service a not so stellar neighborhood. But here is the real difference; the average value of a customer that walks in and drops off dry cleaning at a store is less than $100 per year. As a route owner I can be selective on who I service and in turn my average customer spends $696 per year or nearly 7 times what a walk in customer spends. I even have a buddy back east whose average route customer spends $980 per year, now that’s a lot of money!
The dry cleaning route business is the future of our industry, the numbers speak for themselves.
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