profitable drycleaning services

Promoting your services can pay

1 June 2007



Drycleaners are extending the range of services they offer to their clients. Tony Vince examines the demand for greater convenience and quality


Traditional drycleaning volumes have been shrinking for some time and this trend is likely to continue.

As a result, many of the most successful drycleaning businesses are extending their range of services, to reach new target groups.

The larger operators, such as Persil Service, which is moving into the High Street with its own branded stores, will offer a range of what it describes as “convenient services for busy people”.

Those provided by each store will be on merit, says MD Carole Brown.

All stores will provide the core drycleaning and laundry services, while the provision of additional ones, such as ironing, key cutting and photo processing, will depend upon local competition and opportunities.

Central processing is a significant development in the independent sector. Factory-based businesses are now offering specialist facilities for the single-unit high street operator.

So the single business can subcontract leather, suede, duvets and silk items to a specialist.

In Scotland, the owner of 2XCEL cleaners, Stuart Coupar, who has over 35 years experience in the industry says a substantial amount of the revenue comes from trade work, including laundry. The Perth-based company has offered specialist cleaning, including leather and suede, since it began in 2000. Other trade services include flameproofing treatment, carpet cleaning and a waxed garment renovation service.

The main factory in Perth has specialist leather and suede cleaning machines, adds Coupar, and repairs and alterations are carried out in-house.

Giltbrook Cleaners is one of the leading drycleaners in the Nottingham and Derby area. The family-run business operates seven shops, which offer several specialist services including an evening wear/wedding dress service, pressing, stain removal, invisible repairs and alterations, curtain cleaning, carpet cleaning machine hire, leather and suede cleaning and flame retarding.

According to general manager Chris Jackson, trade work covers an extensive client base.

“We have recently centralised our business with processing carried out at two individual units,” he says. “All drycleaning work is now handled at Beeston, and all wetcleaning is handled at West Bridgeford.” The company’s ironing service is operated via collection points or through a pick-up service.

Giltbrook also runs a customer loyalty scheme that ties in with the company’s established workwear business, providing delivery, cleaning and maintenance for garments, towels and dustmats.

Giltbrook Cleaners provides club discount cards for staff to use for drycleaning their personal clothing.

Another family-run independent that prides itself on combining personal service and attention to detail is Master Cleaners of Belsize Park in North West London. “Our customer base is not price sensitive, it is quality of service that counts,” says Daniel Brown, the founder’s son.

Master Cleaners, was opened as an independent drycleaner by Michael Brown in 1972. It established itself as a specialist drycleaner to the theatrical, film and television world, and clients have included West End theatres, Warner Brothers and the BBC.

The company offers that expertise and quality service to clients in the UK and even overseas. In addition to its core drycleaning service, Master Cleaners provides specialist services including leather and suede cleaning, wax jacket cleaning, restoration drycleaning, wedding dress cleaning, curtain cleaning, on-site repairs and alterations and a hand-finished laundry service.

In conjunction with a local company, it runs a laundry service which includes shirts, table linen and duvet covers.“If you do subcontract, and the laundry knows what it is doing, then it should be a hassle-free service for the cleaner,” says Brown.

Curtain cleaning forms an important part of the business. “We travel to the customer’s premises. An experienced fitter takes down the curtains and linings to bring them in for cleaning, and we ensure they are returned and working properly,” he adds. The company will also dry and wetclean nets, blinds, pelmets and tie backs.

The business’s experience and attention to detail has attracted customers with both modern and vintage designer clothing. It has also cleaned special items such as Hagrid’s coat in the Harry Potter films and 100-year-old William Morris curtains for the Science Museum in London.

The company has branched out into other areas. Master Cleaners is a distributor of Maroma’s Colibri anti-moth products to the drycleaning industry in the UK, working with the UK importer Himalaya UK. It sells directly to over 10% of the UK drycleaning market and in 2004, it became Colibri’s worldwide agent for the drycleaning industry.

The success of the anti-moth products in UK department stores is being reproduced in the drycleaning industry, says Brown.

While counter sales of products are a small part of the Master Cleaners’ business, he says that selling retail products in drycleaner’s shop is a good idea as so much space is under-used.

Brown says cleaners should think more in terms of a High Street retail outlet. Drycleaning has lagged behind in this respect. Customers come in all the time and this should generate extra sales revenue.

Earlier this year The Independent named Colibri as one of the top 50 household products, which gave sales a big boost.

Colibri could be the most profitable square foot of display space in the shop, says Brown. “A drycleaning shop is the ideal place in which to promote textile care products and cleaners must market the goods they sell.”

That message is echoed by Graham Warren, the sales director of Caraselle, in north London.

Our business is all about people keeping their clothes clean, and he believes that the high street drycleaner “can do a lot more if he puts his mind to it”.

The Berliand family founded the company, and son Jonathan Berliand continues the business.

Caraselle supplies most of the major drycleaners, producing branded garment care products for Persil Service as well as several independent cleaners. It recently branched out to selling directly to the public via its website.

Caraselle Direct supplies products related to clothes and textile care – brushes and rollers, garment rails, shoe boxes, clothes hangers, storage boxes, vacuum storage bags and chests, moth deterrents, pet hair removers, loft and underbed storage boxes, and wedding dress covers.

“We create, develop and manufacture the products,” says Jonathan Berliand. “From 30 products, we have expanded to 600, and our aim is to introduce a further 300 to 400 during the next year.”

Caraselle’s best known product is its sticky roller brush. The company plans to sell 100m units globally a year, and it estimates that every brush sale will bring 6 – 10 sales of refills each year. The products can be branded with the drycleaners’ logos and can help promote a cleaner’s loyalty scheme.

“We sell to the public directly, but this is not seen as competing with the drycleaner – the drycleaner can only stock part of the range we now have,” says Warren.

Caraselle stands are available as wall mounted rack, carousel, or counter display unit. However, the wall rack sets out products to the best advantage.

Warren sees the home delivery laundry services taking off in the UK. Home delivery generally is growing, and Caraselle sees this as a further opportunity for home sales.

Caraselle now operates an affiliate scheme which is run with a third party company, Affiliate Future.

“This allows us to concentrate on the important task of fulfilling the orders while they take care of tracking our sales,” says Warren.

“Drycleaners can benefit from linking to us by making money from any sales generated. Once the signup process is completed, the cleaner is provided with special links to send traffic to Caraselle’s site. Sales the cleaner makes will be logged and commission paid.”

One affiliate is Purple Label, based at Milton Park, near Didcot. The firm was started by Stuart Tofts and Louise Rampe. Graham explained: “All inquiries for garment care products on the Purple Label website are now forwarded to us, leaving Stuart and Louise to concentrate on the drycleaning.”

Caraselle’s Warren believes drycleaners must be more pro-active as retailers. For example, if a customer’s clothes have cat or dog hairs on them, then staff should ask if they would like a pet hair remover. Staff should make connections between one sale and another.

Drycleaners can make extra sales both when customers bring in clothes and when they collect.

He cites shoe stores as a good example of proactive selling, where assistants try to sell accessories with every shoe sale. “Drycleaners should have the same approach. They occupy prime locations and should maximise every square foot.”


KEEP CLEAN: Master Cleaners in Belsize Park, north London Master Cleaners

Master Cleaners Master Cleaners


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