Pick Up / Drop Off Service

[Quarters]

Can anyone discuss a timeline for begining a pick up and drop off service? I am thinking of this to add addtional income, but don't want to jump in too fast. Any reccommendations regarding advertising in local towns, and in-store advertising; discounting at the begining; pricing compared to regular WDF, etc. Any suggestions would be great.

[mike]

Does anyone do this successfully ? (if so, how long)

I just don't see how you can do this, and get paid more than it is actually costing you.

Would you have a dedicated person/vehicle to pick up ?

I have thought about it for many years, but when I try to cost/rationalize, with the factor of time, for at LEAST 2 trips, (if they're at home both times) and scheduling, I just get an absurd price per pound.

I know, some will say there is a market for very high end service, but we aren't all in Beverly Hills.

You have to be able to pay that whole salary, whether there is enough work or not.

I only see this working if you have a spare brother-in-law lying on your couch, and he can ride a bicycle :-)

[UK_Laundry]

We run a collection and delivery service in the UK with a dedicated van. It's one of things we've considered getting rid of.

We have plenty of customers, its just the amount customers are willing to pay for the service doesn't cover the van+fuel+driver+van repairs & servicing + van depreciation etc etc etc.

By the time you drive there and they're out/ decided they will wait till next week but didnt call/not got it ready - it's just not economical. Then you've got to catch them in to return it.

The only way around this is to have a pre-payment method and it's possible to collect/deliver from a shed or other suitable place but alot of people don't like this idea.

It definitely doesn't cover its cost for us and is therefore supplemented by the margin on the actual wash process. OK so some profit is better than none BUT your staff time is then occupied by doing these therefore potentially too busy to do a walk-in customer at a higher rate and we've also found a walk-in customer decides to have it collected when they hear about the service thereby reducing the profit on an existing customer.

LASTLY it's a service very much used by the elderly. The elderly tend to have their routine and if your driver isn't there when they think they should arrive (even though you don't give them a time) they'l be on the phone occupying even more time. Amazing how many people do this.

Anyway. Just my views. Maybe others have better input.

[PFM]

I have run a collection & delivery service for W/D/F for years. To start with I did it myself, then employed a friend who had just retired 4 mornings a week. As I knew him well, I could trust him to log his hours, for which I paid him. I didn't want to lose the use of my van so bought a cheap one for him to use and had it sign-written.

We charge a small, fixed amount for the service. If you have a van anyway, you just need to cover the labour cost. You may want to factor in the cost of the van, fuel, insurance etc which needn't be very high. I must add that we're in a medium size town and a rate of 10 - 12 calls per hour is achieveable, most of our customers are regular and send each week or fortnight, most are elderly and at home on the prescribed morning (we don't specify times, but the routes are fairly regular so the driver gets there around the same time each visit). We do around 40-50 washes a week this way, and collect cash or cheque on delivery apart from a few monthly accounts for people who work.

We would not receive most of this work if the service didn't exist, so it's all extra revenue both for the machines and the service-wash charges, and is definitely worthwhile. The key to doing it successfully is to be regular, reliable and efficient (like most things)

I strongly recommend you don't do same-day service unless you're prepared to be out and about all day yourself - it's not cost-efficient and people don't need their stuff done in such a hurry - do they really only have one set of sheets/towels/clothes etc?

[Mungo Spike]

I've had a very profitable pickup and delivery service for six or seven years. There are several threads on this board that discuss pickup and delivery, but I'll touch on a few points made in this thread:
1) We run routes with 25-35 customers on each route. Turnaround time is 3 days (pickup on Monday, deliver on Thursday, for example). We do not do one-at-a-time pickups/deliveries unless the customer is nearby and has a huge order.
2) We normally do not accept customers who have to be present for us to do the pickup or delivery. They have to have a place where we can pickup and deliver without their being there. Many customers give us keys to their apartment buildings or to their apartments. Pickups/Deliveries "by appointment" just don't work most of the time.
3) We do not accept cash, and we take checks only from commercial accounts that we invoice monthly. For all other customers we take their credit card information when they sign up for service, and we charge their credit cards after processing their orders.
4) We have a "Minimum Charge" (currently $19), and we charge an "Empty Run Fee" (currently $10) for customers who forget to leave out their clothes, or if we can't pickup or deliver at their address through no fault of our own.
5) My drivers are employees who function as attendants when they're not driving.

We are very profitable, and successful enough that we turn away more pickup/delivery business than we accept now.

Good luck... Mungo

[vivian]

how and what do you charge? we've been tossing the idea around for a while. thanks vivian

[Mungo Spike]

I use Quickbooks Pro software, so I set up an account for each customer in Quickbooks, and then charge their credit cards and e-mail their paid invoices to them through Quickbooks. Pretty easy, really.
My basic price schedule for pickup/delivery is $1.35/lb for 1-40 lbs, $1.25 for 41-80 lbs, and $1.20 for 81+ lbs.
Take care ... Mungo

[vivian]

thanks for the tips and info. vivian