Presentation and product appeal
27 January 2022Maintaining and improving profitability and turnover is crucial to the success of a business. The key to success is the image we project to our customers and potential customers which depends very much on - customer service, the cleanliness of our premises and product, effective stain removal, a standard of finish that should normally equate to that of a new garment and finally, presentation.
Presentation covers all aspects of how the item is returned to the customer such as the type of polyrobe (hopefully sustainable), coat hanger, trouser guard and paper packaging you use. Polyrobe is normally used for the majority of items and is available in various gauges but the lighter weight products tear very easily and do not reflect well on the cleaner. The same applies to wire coat hangers with the cheaper products twisting and sagging under the weight of heavier garments and combined with the cheaper trouser guards will certainly not help promote sales. There is a wide variety of coat hangers available to the cleaner including coloured plastic hangers, moulded shaped hangers and finally shaped wooden hangers with a serrated insert in the crossbar to stabilise/ secure the trousers, although for most cleaners the cost of wooden hangers would be unacceptable. The moulded type and wood hangers are thought to be the best in terms of preserving standards of finish, the drawback being that considerably more temporary storage is required and there is of course the additional cost to consider.
Skirts
The way you deliver/present your products to your customers can have a major impact on customer satisfaction and on how they perceive the quality of your service. Some of the worst presentation I have ever seen relates to skirts in particular and occasionally to jackets, coats and trousers. While some cleaners do use professional skirt hangers the vast majority do not and secure skirts to wire hangers using metal or plastic clips with others using safety pins. I would suggest that if high street stores presented skirts in this way, sales would suffer. Although skirts only represent approximately 10% of a cleaners volume, typically 50% or more of our cleaning is deposited by women, so how we present skirts can have a disproportionate influence on sales.
A good professionals skirt hanger will be much appreciated by female customers as they avoid the frustration of lost clips/ safety pins and much of the tedium of securing the skirt to the hanger when it is replaced in the wardrobe. Bearing this in mind, I believe the relatively small overall additional cost is well worthwhile as the use of professional skirt hangers will inevitably encourage female footfall with the associated increase in the volume of family clothing.
Suits and costumes
In contrast to skirts; jackets, suits and costumes form a high percentage of the typical cleaner’s workload so presentation for these items is also very important. For cleaners operating towards the higher end of the market the use of a moulded plastic hanger or a shaped wood hanger will considerably enhance presentation and product appeal. However, the overall cost implications will be much greater than for skirts and temporary storage will need to be increased by around 30% which has to be considered against a much improved product appeal.
