Although big MNCs like Amazon have been pioneering the use of lockers for contact-free pick-up and delivery, lockers can also be a valuable investment for dry cleaners, wet cleaners and other laundry businesses. Laundry lockers allow businesses a relatively low-investment way to enter into the contactless economy, an important transition during the COVID-19 pandemic.
An Introduction to Laundry Lockers
Laundry lockers provide customers with a more convenient service, when compared with traditional laundry services. Here’s how they work, from the consumer’s point of view:
1. Put your laundry into any empty locker.
2. Order your laundry treatment via the app.
3. You’ll get an alert once your laundry is clean and ready to be picked up from the same locker.
Before the onset of the pandemic, laundry lockers were favored by busy city professionals for their convenience. However, now, a wider group of people are using laundry lockers in order to reduce physical interaction for health reasons. In response to the growing consumer demand and stricter COVID-19 guidelines, apartment complexes and office blocks are also welcoming laundry locker businesses to use their location.
Should You Invest in Laundry Lockers During COVID-19?
Laundry lockers are a passive income stream, because, once set up, they can easily integrate into your existing operations, with minimal up-front or ongoing investment.
Due to the increased demand from individuals and locations for laundry lockers, B2B locker suppliers have reported an increase in clients since the beginning of the pandemic. Daniel Stoof, owner of Breezy Laundry Lockers – a business that powers dry cleaners with white-labeled custom lockers – weighed in on why: “Laundry lockers have always been a reliable income stream, but laundry businesses are now starting to see the real advantages of lockers in the contact-free economy.”
• Contactless Economy: Increasing revenue doesn’t need to mean increasing footfall. With laundry lockers, you can generate loyal customers who are trying to limit their contact with other people.
• Residential Locations: City-center laundromats have suffered from the fact that there are fewer people working in urban hubs. For businesses based in urban hubs, lockers offer a way to increase clientele, through winning locations in residential complexes. If targeting high-value luxury apartment complexes, it’s important to find premium lockers – with details like gas hinges for minimal foyer disturbance – to win over the client.
• Hygiene: The National Cleaners Association has released guidelines for preventing the spread of COVID-19. They recommend tagging and leaving laundry for 24 hours between drop-off by customer and handling by staff. However, this can be a difficult guideline to follow in a space-limited city laundromat. Laundry lockers offer a sanitized alternative: a locked, isolated location to keep clothes for this 24-hour period.
Should You Partner with a B2B Locker Supplier?
You may have built your laundromat from the ground up, but it can be beneficial to find a partner when venturing into the contact-free economy. Here are the reasons why finding a B2B laundry locker supplier is recommended:
• Expertise: Building your laundry locker business can require a new skillset and pose a challenge. Through partnering with a B2B supplier of laundry lockers, you can benefit from a wealth of industry experience and guidance. However, you should choose your supplier carefully, looking for a business that leverages its experience in B2B and B2C markets to provide full package deals. For example, the Breezy team use their B2C experience to provide pitch decks, locations contracts, marketing collateral and more.
• Resource-Saving: Setting up a laundry locker element to your business can be time-consuming and budget-draining, in terms of design, manufacture, sales and marketing. When you partner with a B2B laundry locker company, you can benefit from expertise that allow you to focus your efforts, as well as package deals that minimize up-front investment.
• Easy Integrations: Working with a laundry locker supplier can allow you to avoid difficult integrations between laundry locker systems and your existing PoS. Although some companies only provide you with a lock and key, businesses like Breezy either set clients up with a pre-existing integration for an instant go-live, or work quickly to develop an integration that’s included in your set-up package.
