With the onset of summer, dry cleaning activity would be at its peak. It is a modern convenience that helps us preserve our clothes and saves time and money. It’s a good business to start as there is growth potential and one can do it either as a franchisee or as a standalone facility. It also does not involve huge costs.
Deepak Kapoor owns a shop in Sector 41, Noida by the name of Kapoor Drycleaners started his business in 1990s. He says his friends were into this business and they inspired him to get into it. They even provided him support for setting it up. Before that he used to work in a showroom as a salesman.
According to Kapoor, despite its name, dry-cleaning is not a dry process. Only that no water is used in this type of cleaning. In fact, solvents are used for this kind of cleaning. In this, clothes are placed into dry cleaning machines, he said.
Process:
Once your clothes are dropped at the outlet, they are sent to the work shop where the clothes go through first pre-treatment.
Deepak says that the clothes are subject to pre-treatment where spots found during inspection are treated with a removal agent or steam gun.
Dry-cleaning: Then the clothes are dry-cleaned with solvents in a special machine.
Post-spot cleaning: This stage involves removal of persistent stains.
The final step of dry cleaning process involves steaming and then press the item. This final step ensures your item is wrinkle-free, stain-free, and ready for your use.
And then the clothes are steam ironed and pressed and ready for delivery.
Delivery and Pickup: Delivery and pickup are free for the customers. There is a service of free pickup for the customers, and even delivery is and the usual turnaround time is 3-4 days.
What is latest in the industry?
Deepak said that new machines are being used now. There are state-of-the-art machines used now a days that are computer controlled. Also the chemicals used are eco-friendly and termed as not carcinogenic. Besides this, the drycleaners are also recycling certain solvents to avoid wastage.
Profits:
It is considered to be highly profitable business. In a professional dry cleaning, whether a drycleaner is using a perk machine or a multi solvent hydrocarbon machine, the profit margins could be as high as 62%. If we look at pure profit after taking out costs like labor charges, electricity, chemical cost, transportation, and pressing it could be nearly 38% to 45%. This according to Deepak is quite high when compared to other businesses.
