Ironing business

Pedders18

Hi everyone,

My girlfriend and I are fed up of just getting by each month and have decided to set up a local Ironing business to increase our income.

Our plan is to collect by the black bag load of ironing and deliver it back on an agreed date. We have decided that we will charge £15 per bag load. We have produced a flyer that we will drop in the local area to get new business.

Now, I just want your advice/thoughts on it. Be honest, would you use the service? Anything that I may not have thought about? What would sway you to use a service of this nature? Fair price?

Has anyone done something similar? I am determined to make this work and help us to have a few more pounds each month!

Cheers everyone in advance for feedback! :T

lozza1985

It could definately work...a few years ago my sister took stuff for ironing as they both worked long hours and it was easier to get shirts done by someone else lol!

Have you thought about insurance for it? I'd imagine you would need some in case people claim that you have damaged their items - you might not have done but you know how some people will try things!

Pedders18

Thats a good point Lozza and I have thought about it and am in the process of getting it sorted out. Is our pricing fair in your opinion? Do you think people will take the micky and ram bags full so they cant be tied at the top?

We are going to aim it at batchelors, city workers etc etc that may not have time to do their ironing. We both still have our everyday jobs, and will run this along side, I think in this climate, it is worth a shot :-)

iamana1ias

I think stephb1986 runs an ironing business

Pedders18

Hopefully not in the same area ;-)

Do you think she would mind me asking a few questions, asking for tips?

foxwales

A few questions you need to ask yourself really.

How long will it take you to iron a full black bag? 1 hour? 2 hours?, is £15 really worth the effort for maybe 2 hours work, add in your petrol costs for collect and delivery, is it really worth your while?

What if you damage someones clothing? do you have any contingency fund setup to cover this?

If you do damage an item of clothing how will you compensate your client, will you pay face value for the item or will you pay what the client expects its worth?

What if someone claims your ironing is not up to standard, will you waive the fee?

Where will you store all of the ironing? Worst case scenario, a fire happens at your property, but what if it does? how will you cover the cost of all these clothes?

If your house is rented or mortgaged, are there any restrictions for you running a business from home?

Perhaps consider drawing up an inventory sheet so you can document what you receive from your clients and then get them to sign it so you can cover yourself if someone claims you have lost one of their items of clothing.

Rockporkchop

I would be wary about charging per black bag load - you will probably end up with a big bag of shirts. Also black bags really vary in size so you could get stung. My ironing guy charges £15 for 30 items but duvet covers and sheets count as 2 items - I think this is a really good deal and the best I could find.

The washing has to be folded in a bag or it is not accepted - they said they used to find that people just took the washing straight out of the dryer and bundled it into a bag so it was really creased and took forever to iron. My ironer supplies a pre-printed sheet where you tick off what items you are giving him (i.e. 10 shirts/2 teeshirts etc but noting any expensive items) - it stops people saying that they gave you a particular item but have not received it back. You should state that anything needing special treatment, such as a cool or extra hot iron should be specified clearly (and probably charged extra for).

As so many people really hate ironing I think it is always going to be a popular service. Don't forget to take into account that running a decent iron at home uses a huge amount of electricity so that will eat into your profits a bit.

Hope this helps. Good luck with it all.

Edit: Foxwales has made some good points there. People can be extremely picky when it comes to ironing - I am not so fussy (just happy I'm not doing it myself!) but my DH likes his shirts to be just so. I recommended my ironer to my neighbour but she was not impressed and she insisted he refund her for most of the items. I felt really guilty and haven't recommended anyone since.

Also, probably not a problem but you must store clothes and work in a non smoking and pet free environment as the clothes really pick up every scent.

Pedders18

This site is brilliant and I would like to thank you guys who have answered in this thread, some very interesting comments and some great food for thought.

Now, the next bit is to chose the right iron to do a great job for the clients that we get!!

Rockporkchop

A bit expensive to buy but this iron is brilliant and will cut down your ironing time:

http://www.johnlewis.com/230443523/Product.aspx

I bought one when I was going through my doing my ironing myself phase, ended up selling it on ebay as it was gathering dust in the cupboard!

Stephb1986_2

foxwales wrote: »

A few questions you need to ask yourself really.

How long will it take you to iron a full black bag? 1 hour? 2 hours?, is £15 really worth the effort for maybe 2 hours work, add in your petrol costs for collect and delivery, is it really worth your while?

It depends on how much is rammed into the bag, you can get a good 40-50 items into a bin bag

What if you damage someones clothing? do you have any contingency fund setup to cover this?

Ironing service Insurance will cover this depending on how much the item cost then we have asked the customer if we can replace it.

If you do damage an item of clothing how will you compensate your client, will you pay face value for the item or will you pay what the client expects its worth?

If the item is no longer in store and is quite used then we will offer what we think the item is worth. BUT some people do try it on and say that we have burnt stuff before so now we either 1. ring them to make sure they knew and 2, leave the item un-ironed and send it back to them

What if someone claims your ironing is not up to standard, will you waive the fee?

We have never had that problem. To be honest people know what their stuff is like to iron or they wouldn't be sending it out to be ironed so if they can do better than what we can do then they can go ahead.

Where will you store all of the ironing? Worst case scenario, a fire happens at your property, but what if it does? how will you cover the cost of all these clothes?

What is the chance of this happening? We have been running 7 years and never had a fire or something as bad that would cause us to pay out for everything.

If your house is rented or mortgaged, are there any restrictions for you running a business from home?

You will have to look on the deeds to see if there is a restriction on the property for running a business, but I don't see there being a problem running a business from home like we do because unless your charging rent for the business in expenses this won't go into account.

Perhaps consider drawing up an inventory sheet so you can document what you receive from your clients and then get them to sign it so you can cover yourself if someone claims you have lost one of their items of clothing.

People don't have time for this, What we do is count the items write it down and when we take it back to the customer we count it back to them. Most customers count it themselves so they know what they have sent.

I would say find yourself a good accountant. Don't charge per bin bag as people will ram it in as much as they can charge per item. We charge 63p per item but where you live you could easily charge £1 per item, We don't touch bedding it's too time consuming we can easily iron 10 items to 1 bedding sheet.

HTH

Steph xx

Pedders18

Rockporkchop wrote: »

A bit expensive to buy but this iron is brilliant and will cut down your ironing time:

http://www.johnlewis.com/230443523/Product.aspx

I bought one when I was going through my doing my ironing myself phase, ended up selling it on ebay as it was gathering dust in the cupboard!

Purchased :beer: