Start an ironing service... official MoneySavingExpert.com discussion

kathysIroning

Hi,
Hmm, think your opening yourself up a bit here. Could be a basket full of difficult items. Really suggest you then price by weight or item. Sort of region for weight might be £4.00p/kg lowest upto £5/kg later. pricing pickup/del. seperately. - Just my suggestion (i price by item).

ok to start along this line initially to get foot in door, but you may find hard to change to another pricing format downstream. Nearly all my customers have accepted reasonable price rises over the years. Not so sure thay would have been so happy with pricing format change.

No doubt you have tried filling a basket with neatly packed (say) shirts and timed yourself ironing them. Oh, and remember your electricity bill is going to grow (a good guess is by £300 - £500 annually). You will go through a few irons as well (even steam gen's) so factor all this in.

Kathy

raggydoll_2

Thanks Kathy - thats really helpful, will give it some thought. I like the idea of people knowing exactly what they have to pay before hand without having to calculate each individual item but at the same time i don't want to be losing out. Hmmmmm.

I've found a local shop that can supply me with coat hangers, found an iron that i like the sound of with good reviews, its on ebay at £75 and amazon at £125. Need to find a new ironing board, found garment covers on ebay and can make my own flyers up. An also going to buy a cheap PAYG mobile with designated number for business so it will alway be answered professionally. Was also going to get one of those folding board thingies so everything is perfectly folded too and put a little essential oil in the ironing water to lightly scent. So i reckon i can set up for less than £200. I'm going to sell some things i have put on one side on ebay to fund that. Will put them on on my day off tomorrow so hopefully will have the funds avaliable next week and will work on my flyers in the mean time. I will just have my little hatcback car to start with but if things go well a little van would be useful for us anyway so we will look at buying one. Insurance wise no one will be coming to the house, vehicle wise i am already covered for business use due to my other work and i will pay out for any damages myself initially but won't do anything i'm not confident about and will use and iron guard to minimise the risk.

Have i missed anything??

kathysIroning

Hi,

Recently i have been negotiating a reduced electricity tariff option with one of the major energy suppliers for energy hungry home services like my own. This would be in return for investing in energy saving measures and would count towards their own Carbon Reduction Obligations (under UK legislation - CERT).

It is getting to an interesting stage, and at this point would like to find out if any other Home Ironing Services may be interested. My own electricity bill through ironing has almost doubled my normal bill (yuks !)

Out of interest, my own ironing usage is 3200kWh (calculated) - and thats equivilent to 1.3 tonnes CO2 (equivilent to 27,520 standard party balloons filled with CO2 - Yikes).

E.g (simplified) 2.2kW iron running on average 32hours per week = 70kWh
Over 46 weeks thats 3220kWh

Any ironing services interested - if you fancy posting your estimated annual usage i will keep a running total of CO2 and equivilent party ballons posted.

Kathy

Stephb1986_2

Hi Raggy I wouldnt recommed putting scented water in your iron as we tried that to begin with and it broke our irons. If people have stuff they want folding use scented bin liners instead, I have vanilla, orange, lavendar. The I write the customers address on the top of the bag in permanant marker so I know who they belong to.

I think its best that you charge per item that way you can't lose out. If customers want to know the price before you take it back you could count their order and then ring them with the price. We charge 63p per item of clothing. We no longer do bedding or curtains as the weight can break the ironing boards.

We don't sleeve stuff as some of the sleeves are not wide enough for peoples clothes and then when the customers get their stuff back they would probably need to re-iron it.

Steph xx

Stephb1986_2

Just been thinking this morning that with the big hype about recycling you shouldn't be using the garment covers also get customers to provide their own hangers and used recycled bags to put folding it.

We will be green then!

Steph xx

alanlangdon

Hey steph thats a great idea,
quick question tho where do you buy your supplies and what's the business called? im thinking of calling mine something like All ironed out what you think?

Stephb1986_2

Hi Alan,

Your best looking in the yellow pages to see what other people are called in your area I do know of one called All Ironed Out that are based in Liverpool. If you copy the name they could sue you as someone recently set up 2 miles away from us and called themselves the same name! We told him that he would have to change it as we have been trading as this for the last 6 years. He's now changed it.

Also the other problem you might have is that I wouldn't give up a full time job at the moment to start ironing just do it a few nights a week as with the credit crunch people can no longer afford to have their ironing done and we have lost 2-3 customers because of it.

There are quite a few ironing service coming into Wigan so you might not get much work there. A few to be named are:

Wrinkles Out
Cheeky Monkeys
Lilly White (based in Bolton)
First Impressions
The Ironing Squad
A Domestic Goddess
Maid To Iron
Gleaming Group
Pressed To Impress
Elite Ironing Service
Campion-Murray Ironing services
Christines Crease free Ironing
Iron Maiden
Pressed 4 Time
The Iron Lady
Jayne's Ironing Service
DRT Domestics
Standish Cleaning services
Pressing Matters
Collard and Cuffs
Simply Ironing
and there are quite a few more too that is just in wigan and not your area.

There is also now the likes of Johnsons the cleaners doing ironing with collection and delivery and Halls too.

Steph xx

dina211715

I'm a 19 year old full time student, and you guys have certainly inspired me to start up an ironing service to help support my studies! Wish me luck!!!:beer:

dayfive

I've been doing an ironing service locally. Not going to bad. A bit slow perhaps but have a couple of regulars who are happy.
Then yesterday one new client rang up, 4 days after I dropped her ironed shirts off, complaining that they hadn't been ironed and she had to do them all again!!! Accusing me of being a liar!!! I did remember noting that when she took them off me she threw them on the settee in a heap. That wouldn't have helpped!

Anyway, moral of the story, watch out for the minority of people who want something for nothing and aren't afraid to try it on!!!! You will come across one, at least, so be prepared!

Any experiences?

Woodyrocks

Just thought of a name IRONED OUT and it does sounds like minimum start-up expense which is really good but just not sure if I like ironing that much!

I know there is a ironing service about a mile away, might phone them up and find out how much they charge and what not.