Sunny weather is... "hungry"
Having started her career in laundry business 4 years ago, Ms. Ngoc Nhu (owner of a laundry shop on Pham Van Chieu Street, Go Vap District) said that during the rainy season (from June to the end of November), the number of customers coming to the laundry shop increases dramatically. During the first rainy days of the season, she earns 2-3 million VND per day.
"If the shop washes an average of 100kg of clothes on a normal day, then during the rainy season, the number will increase to 200-300kg. During the dry season, there are few customers, but during the rainy season, there are more customers. Doing business like this depends on... the whims of God," Ms. Nhu shared.
Fast, instant laundry shops are always busy during the rainy season (Photo: Diem My).
Not far away, Nguyen Thanh Son’s instant laundry shop also has hundreds of kilograms of clothes piled up for customers to wash. His shop accepts all types of laundry from clothes, shoes, wedding dresses to down jackets.
"On a normal day, my shop washes about 200kg of clothes. During the rainy season, it increases to 300kg on normal days and up to 400kg on Sundays," Mr. Son confided.
With 300-400kg of laundry, Mr. Son earns about 3-5 million VND per day. During the rainy season, the store has to install additional machines to wash clothes for customers on time. Currently, he is also recruiting more staff for the laundry shop due to overload.
Sharing the reason for his fate with the laundry business, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Son said that a few years ago, he was working in an office when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, and the social distancing period had nothing to do with him, so he turned to self-employment.
At that time, he realized that the laundry industry was quite safe, so he learned from experience. In October 2021, he started opening a laundry shop. At first, there were few customers, so he had to make up for the loss, but now the number of customers has stabilized. Mr. Son determined that he was on the right track, and the business gradually stabilized.
Although the income is high, the laundry business also has many difficulties that only those in the profession can understand. If you are a little careless, the shop owner will have to pay millions.
"Once, my staff used bleach to bleach a customer's colored clothes and damaged the clothes. I had to pay the customer more than 1 million VND," Mr. Son shared.
Many shop owners say that laundry and drying work requires the washer to equip himself with basic knowledge about fabrics and clothing classification. The washer must understand whether the fabric material will bleed or not in order to separate it.
"Addictive for money" profession
Although a popular and preferred service, laundry shops are also quite picky about their customers. Most customers who come to the laundry shop are people with stable incomes. Some people are loyal to the laundry service year after year, but others only come to the laundry service during the rainy season. In addition, there are customers who only come to wash blankets and curtains.
According to Mr. Son, laundry and drying is popular but not an easy business. There are cases where laundry shops open but have no customers, cannot afford the loss and have to transfer the premises or quit to do other jobs.
When the rainy season comes, many people think that washing clothes by themselves, then having to hang them out to dry, waiting for rain to get them out, and ironing them is quite time-consuming and laborious. Instead of doing the laundry by themselves, many people are willing to pay for laundry services to "put their worries aside".
"I have a regular customer who works in an office and lives alone but spends millions of dong on laundry every month," said Ms. Nhu.
Mr. Thanh Son said that this service is also... addictive, if you have used the service once, you will most likely continue to use it a second time. Some people find a laundry shop they like and almost always return there, not washing at home anymore. Mr. Son told of a series of regular customers like that at his shop.
"Some people go to the laundry to do laundry for the whole family. Each month, the cost of laundry ranges from 500,000 to 1 million VND," said Mr. Son.
Ms. Nguyen Hai Anh, 24 years old, an office worker, shared: "I often take my clothes to the laundry because it's convenient. Now in the rainy season, the laundry at home doesn't dry, it's damp and uncomfortable. After going to the laundry, the clothes are dried, fragrant and convenient."
Mr. Le Quoc Trung, a regular customer of the laundry shop, said that his habit of going to the laundry shop comes from living alone. Every week, he goes to the laundry shop 1-2 times.
"Sometimes I do my own laundry at home and hang them out to dry, but when I come home from work, my clothes are often wet and not very fragrant. Everyone in the dormitory goes to work, so there's no one to help me put my clothes away," Trung explained.
According to long-standing laundry shops, laundry is a seasonal business. During the dry season, the number of customers will decrease, while during the wet season, the number of customers will increase dramatically. Understanding this change, laundry shop owners must always adapt, balancing revenue between the high and low seasons to be able to maintain the laundry shop year-round.
Diem My
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