CHICAGO — For decades, dry cleaners filled a basic niche for their customers, and services often didn’t vary. Through evolving economic and social realities, along with customer needs and demands, most of today’s owners realize that becoming “all things clean” to their customers is now a necessity to maintain market share.
The expansion of route and delivery services, cleaning items beyond garments, branching out into related fields, and more are becoming increasingly commonplace as dry cleaners search for paths to profitability in the modern marketplace.
The Evolution of Dry Cleaning
Much of this drive to diversification was already in motion, but the events and trends of the past few years kicked the process into overdrive.
“Laundry services have expanded a lot over the past decade, and that seemed to be taking off prior to the pandemic,” says Dawn Avery, executive director of the National Cleaners Association (NCA). “But then, when the pandemic hit, it seemed to explode.”
Keeping business — any business — coming through the door became the driving force behind decisions that would reshape many drycleaning companies.
“We saw piece counts dropping even prior to the pandemic,” Avery says. “And if you’re going to stay in business, you have to offer more. Cleaners were asking themselves why wouldn’t they just be the clean answer for everything for their customers.”
This effort to be a one-stop destination for a customer’s every cleaning need led not only to the increased expansion of pickup and delivery — which became a necessity for many during the “social distancing” phase of the pandemic — but also in the scope of what could be cleaned.
“Shoe and handbag repair have become popular for some dry cleaners,” Avery says. “Also, more and more cleaners are taking on wedding gowns — ones who really didn’t want to do it before have realized they can do it now. Household items are also increasingly popular. If they have a big enough facility, they’re doing their own area rugs, curtains and outdoor furniture.”
Online shopping habits have also led to the increased need for age-old services.
“Tailoring and alterations have exploded due to the volume of online garments purchased,” Avery says. “You can’t try them on before you buy them. I watch the size charts when I’m ordering and tend to go a size up, because it’s easier to have something taken in than let out.”
Expanding Business and Services
For Steve Rettler, owner of Minneapolis-based All Seasons Garment Care and Tailoring, a major move toward broadening his customer base was buying another company.
“One of the big diversifications for us was starting our bridal brand,” he says. “I bought an existing location from a woman who had her own storefront for 10 years. She had sold her drycleaning business and got into this specialty business. She was looking to sell, and I thought what a great bolt-on business that would be for us.”
The move to buy what would become Evermore Wedding Gown Care made sense to Rettler for a couple of different reasons.
“It’s complementary to what we were already doing in the drycleaning space, but yet it was also standalone,” he says. “It offers a different experience for brides, and we can sell it as a more upscale service. We offer more of the spa experience focused around bridal. We don’t want to compete with other dry cleaners on price.”
In addition to the bridal brand, Rettler also recently bought another existing business to increase his offerings.
“In 2021, there was an iconic company in the Twin Cities that sold furs, but they also cleaned and stored furs, as well as performing alterations,” he says. “They were leaving the industry, and they approached me to take over the cleaning alterations and storage business.”
The move felt right to Rettler.
“I bought the equipment from them, and I brought on their main guy who cleans and does the alterations,” he says. “So, we added those services to our portfolio, and it’s really helped. That gave us an entire list of customers who we could target for our drycleaning services, as well.”
Rettler has made other efforts to expand what he can offer to his customers to keep them coming into his stores.
“Alterations was another big diversification in our services,” he says. “We also got into specialty cleaning, where we decided to start cleaning more vintage items, along with high-end drapery, patio cushions, rugs, handbags, shoes and more. We wanted to increase our home service and have a spectrum of things that we can clean in somebody’s home.”
These moves, Rettler says, were not done in haste, but have been part of his overall business strategy.
“I’ve been in the business for 30 years, so the diversification process has taken a long time — we didn’t just diversify overnight,” he says. “When I first got into the business in the mid ’90s, we already started seeing piece counts starting to drop. Casual dress was being introduced, so I started diversifying the business early on. I knew we had to try to even out the revenue on the sales curve, so it’s not so up and down, peaks and valleys.”
Come back Thursday for Part 2 of this series, where we’ll examine the choices of a dry cleaner who put his equipment to use outside of the cleaning industry.
Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Dave Davis at [email protected].
