What do you think?

[Kitty]

If you retreived X$ from your dryers and the amount equaled the amount removed from the washers what would you think?

[Jim]

Kitty...
hmmm it must be one of these...

A) Your dryer times are set too low...
B) Your dryer heat is set too low...
C) As a joke somebody started peppering the dryer boxes...
D) Somebody is stealing from the washer coin boxes...
E) I need an asprin...it's too hard of a question...

I pick "D" am I right?

[Kitty]

I'd say "D" too

I was asked to come take a look at a store in a nearby town. After discussing her store revenue, area and customer base and by visual inspection, I found it odd she was doing so little in revenue.

We counted her machines today and the washers equaled the dryers revenue. Her vend price is 25's at 2.00, 35's at 2.50 and 50's at 3.00. She needs to increase the vend prices somewhat, tops at 1.25. Her dryers are at 8 minutes for a quarter.

I did find that the front lids were unlocked/broken locks and this model had the advance feature, this is why I suggested to count her machines. Prior to today she always dumped all the machines coins together and counted in one lump sum. My thought was that since the dry revenue was not 40% of the washer revenue something was definately amiss. Thought I'd see what you guys thought.

[BWJR]

Normal: Washers - 65%, Dryers 35%

I suggest tracking your water and gas usage on a daily basis. this will reveal the problem, if there is one. If someone is stealing money out of the boxes or starting the washers for nothing this will eventually show up in an inconsistency of money vs usage.
Track it as long as necessary. Are employees involved? Do any of them have service keys?


BWJR

[Kitty]

Can't check the water usage/ not a seperate water meter for the entire strip center.......another issue altogether

[CharlieS]

I think this speaks for itself. No top locks, no controls.

I would begin by fixing all locks and changing all of the keys. considering using something other than a standard access lock. Replace all of the coin boxes. Someone knows how to operate these machines through the tops. She is almost certainly giving lots of free washes. If it is attended, her attendants know about it.

No one, repeat, no one, should ever have keys or the ability to give a free wash, meaning no top lid keys either, other than the owner. Few, very rare exceptions, and they do not apply to regular employees. Giving employees access to these areas also gives them lots of temptation. You can help keep them honest by removing the temptation.


Charlie

[NJ Jon]

Kitty -

Does this person use a video security system? Maybe she should review the tapes, or focus a camera on the machines she / you suspect are being jimmied. Might prove useful to see what is going on.

If no video system, the investment would probably pay for itself. Just make sure the machine is locked in an aea no one can get to.

NJ Jon

[Kitty]

I would think it would be hard to take that much in revenue from customers to manually start the machines???

[Kitty]

Before she does anything other than regain key controls, I did suggest the security system to see what is really going on.

[Neil]

A security system will find a problem but changing the locks would stop the problem dead in it's tracks.

With my machines (and they are 6 years old) they track either number of washes or amount of money collected, whichever I prefer. I have them track money as I bought the mat 4 months ago and I had no idea what the key history was before I bought it. New coin boxes would have cost me more money and this way is perfectly effective at tracking my machines usage.

I also cash out every day and break down my income by machine type. Once a month, I take readings off all of the machines and my spreadsheet compares that to what I actually counted and shows me any discrepancies. (Sometimes there are some as I have reached into coin boxes to give an immediate refund to a customer or I have dropped a few coins to test a coin chute but I know about them and I have accounted for it.) So far, no problem with so much as a missing quarter.

[JBTcajun]

Kitty
Is she trying to sell the Mat?
Did she know you were coming in advance?
Could she have seeded the boxes and not really thought of what she was doing?
No water meter and funny income count makes me scared.

[srhaz]

There is a competeing mat next door to me that has 'special' dry prices on a certain day. I have watched people wash at my place, take there laundry and walk over to the other place to dry. Thats fine, I'm sure the competitor is losing on that one.

[Jim]

Originally posted by Kitty
Can't check the water usage/ not a seperate water meter for the entire strip center.......another issue altogether

Just recently I was looking at possible purchasing a mat that had a similar problem...broken water meter.

The water company billed the plaza as one customer. The landlord of the plaza billed the renters seperately by checking thier water meters, but the laundromat's meter was broken so he just came up with a figure. I could not tell if he was over charging or under charging for water consumption.

I then did some investigating and found out that the owner of the mat broke the meter purposely, from an employee..she told me that he did it about a year ago when someone else asked about purchasing it. hmmm got me thinking...I never purchased it, for that and other reasons...

[mike]

My dryer revenue is almost as high as my washer revenue.
(albeit after a recent dryer hike)

When I did a renovation a couple of years ago, my dealer said install more washers, I said no, dryers first. He said "you" don't make any money on dryers, and you already have enough.
(I suspect HE doesn't make as much on dryers)

I did more drying with the same amount of washers !

I believe most stores are under-dryered.

Maybe there isn't too little money from washers, maybe there is too much money from dryers !
Human nature what it is, that is never considered a possibility !

[MichaelCa]

Mike wrote: "My dryer revenue is almost as high as my washer revenue."

Now THERE'S an ambitious man !


Actually, for the few weeks i owned my Mat before the Remodel,
my Dryer/Washer ratio was 1 - 1 ....sometimes Dryers were higher !

But that sorry state was due to 15lb Stack dryers with set timers (45 mins.) and only Tops for washers.

All of which are history - thanks to me heeding the advice of the brains on here.
Boy, am i glad i listened...

[pete f]

I have 1 store with a higher dry /wash income ratio. There are many single family homes, so when a dryer breaks they wash at home and come to me. The vend prices make me wonder, the dry price is "currant but the wash seems very low. My 50# washer is $5 and my dryer 8 mins at one mat, it costs $5 to wash, and about $2.50 to dry. In your case it would cost $3 to wash, $2.50 to dry. I say washer pricing way to low and probably has more than normal dry only customers.

[Kitty]

Pete your two for two tonight........

Because the owners wash prices are so low I hate to assume her staff is stealing from her. But the first instinct of this scenario was that thought.

I have no interest in purchasing this store, she is a friend of my brothers who called me for info on the biz. She is a great business person but has little knowledge of the laundromat industry even though her family has owned this store for 20+ years. They have merely counted the quarters and never analyzed the financial return of the business, nor educated themselves in the business practices of todays laundromat business. Complicated story.

I find it odd that the wash revenue mirrored the dryer revenue, but I did consider the low wash vend as a possible cause. Does anyone have a pound per pound cost of wash/dry ratio that may help decifer this? I hate to think people steal first, not everyone does, and I hate to come to that conclusion, even though it is a possibility. I never disregard that idea, but there may be something else to take into account of this situation that may be an issue. Could this scenario be just that? Something to dig a little deeper?

[Kitty]

I spoke to the owner again today. Since she has reclaimed her access keys the revenue is balancing to a correct ratio of wash and dry income. It sucks that the first instinct is probably the correct scenario with this.