Very late reply....

the ironing we have to do ourselves right?

Dear TS,

I'm thinking of taking over a laundry business, do you mind gimme some advise what to ask the current owner, before taking the plunge..
as its quite a big money to me :-(

How long do u wait for ROI >

Thanks..

Roughly how much i need if i plan to open a laundry with 4 washer, 2 big dryer, 2 dry cleaner ? And all the chemical and stuff ? Is around Rm70k sufficient ? Do i need to fork out more ?

Just to add one more question...

Is the one time training (the RM 250 one) enough for you to run the business, or is it advisable to work at a dobi shop for months before opening your business?

Thanks 

I ask because the laundry training course is normally just one or two days (with manual of course)
But I was wondering if 1 or 2 days of learning is enough to handle such a business (the management, working process, handling client and workers etc.)...

How many worker is enough for a shop? can we do one man show? where to find them?

Contract always sounds good but there are so much evil lies within. For a small scale laundry like what you are planning to operate, taking laundry for small cafe and massage centre is like walk in customer with COD method of payment. But not for big restaurant or even a small hotels as they need their laundry as cheapest, fastest and cleanest as possible. As they send in big quantity ( mostly in big 20 wheeler container) that payment is quite hefty but the WORK is like hell. You will also need extra industrial type ironing system that is called flatwok ironer that will cost you a bomb. Most operators who do this contract cleaning, they start at a small scale ordinary laundry because this is the period of learning. Might take years of experience to get the most knowledge.

The pricing for hotels should be 30sen per towel and 60sen for queen size bed sheet. You need many types of chemical to eradicate the dirt within hours. Furthermore you need your own big van or truck to do pickup and delivery to the hotels.

Most operators who do hotels, they apply cronism because they know somebody from the inside, but the best thing is getting contract from your own customer. When you do their clothes neatly, they will recommend you laundry to their bosses, God knows who they are and what their position are, we don't. If you are lucky, your customer might probably be the hotel owner. Just like one of my customer   

edyek, what about your story on contract business?
I'm sure u get cash flow jackpot from it

Hi neuro11,

Could you please share how you go about obtaining leasing for laundry machines?  I searched the web but couldn't locate any leasing or hire purchase services for laundry equipments. I wish to know more about this arrangement although I am not for it.

After am_eniey kind advice (please refer to earlier post), I feel that hire purchase/leasing is not a good idea also. If insufficient fund, just start small. Should business fail (ahem..touch wood), your initial capital outlaway is not much compared to leasing which you have to continue serving regardless.
To share with everyone regarding hotel contract service. I have a good friend in Penang that does that, after seeing how he operates - one thing which is obvious - YOU HAVE TO WORK 365 DAYS!

My friend has no resting time or time to go for holiday, even if his laundry shop is not opened on Sunday, he still work like crazy.
Imagine these:
1) You have to collect those dirty laundries and send in clean laundries 3 or 4 times a day, not a single day rest becuase hotel operates 365 days 24x7.
2) You can not be sick. Why? Yes, hotel operates 365 days. Even when he is sick, he still perform the collections, deliveries and washing of laundries.
3) Pricing is very cut-throat, and hotel wants the cheapest rates.  What does that mean? It means to earn a profitable amount, you need large VOLUME...the more laundry to wash the better...that translates to working even harder.
4) Hotel pays on credit terms not COD. My friend told me they owe him about RM20-30K. What if the hotel go bust? How to recover this amount?

Although above may sound negative, my view is if you wish to tender for hotel contract, make sure you have a kilang to support you...not doing all by yourself.

How much to pay for a worker, say a beginner with no prior experience? EPF included?

just want to share some story.
actually i am from indonesia but already long time in malaysia.
in malaysia the laundry price it quite good in the view from the person who have the business.
in indonesia the pricing set a bit crazy specialy in the area near university. is around 0.80 cent per KG include iron and have parfume and softenner sometime i wonder how can make profit for that price.

Price per Kg
edyek is right, RM0.80 per kg is killing the market in general.  As far as I know, I noticed the price per kg ranged from as low as RM1.80 to RM3 (RM3 is my area at Kuchai Lama, not very sure about those upmarket like Bangsar, Mont Kiara, etc).  For what I can gather, it doesn't make sense to go below RM2, but I can't be sure of how much is each cycle run cost (electricity + water + detergent + softerner + labour = $?).  Anyone?

Location
For me, the biggest problem is sourcing for the right location. So far, I have yet to find that right location. I wish to open laundry shop at Kuchai Lama or around my areas like Sri Petaling, Bukit Jalil...should anyone know of any shop leasing at reasonable rate, please let me know.  I don't mind sharing the shop with other vendors like handphone shops, saloon, ...etc.

My Penang friend's shop is located inside the club house of a condominium. He told me that he took 2 years to breakeven and until this year, there are some residents from his area that told him they didn't know that there was a laundry shop in the club house.  The rent maybe cheap, but it took him a long time to recover and establish himself in that area, and his laundry shop opened for 10 years already! 

The area where I lives - Kuchai Lama, a ground floor shop lot rental ranged from RM3,000 - RM6,000; which I think is too high a price to pay for rental except if you are doing restaurant like Paparich, Old Town..etc  Any body has any feedback or suggestiono on this?

Most property agent ignores me when I mentioned that my budget is below RM2,000. I think they also pening kepala

Shop for Sale
I saw in one of the Chinese newspaper recently (I think it was in Oct'10) whereby one of the laundry shop at Sri Petaling was selling its business. I contacted the seller in Dec'10. I asked the owner why he is selling, he told me that he is short handed. When it comes to the asking price for the shop, he said RM120,000! I was shocked.  I was even naive enough to ask him is it because he has Dry Cleaning machine that's why he is demanding such a high price, he simply answered, "No". Wow! Maybe I have no experience in taking over a shop or running a business, but to pay RM120,000 for laundry shop, to me is ridiculously high    Anyone who is interested in taking over his shop can get his handphone number from me, I still keep it as a 'reminder' how much a laundry shop can worth

Worker
ckm1609 raised a valid question....how much to pay the worker?  RM700? RM800? Too little? Too much?
For me, I gladly take am_eniey advice again, I will work alone full time until the business grows the a point I can't handle, then I will worry about how to go about getting help.  Not much of a plan, but I also believes that unless you are 100% committed to the business (no matter what business), it will not succeed. If you think of opening a shop and let someone run it for you....well, not many of us are that lucky.

Hi edyek, I am not sure how many machines the laundry owner of Sri Petaling has. He is not very forthcoming with details; only answering 'yes', 'no'. Anyway, the asking price is way beyond what I can afford.

Bro, was considering about this business as well.
1) Few question to ask. For the washer and dryer do we use normal household washing machine and dryer? Typically China Brands like Midea and so on?
2) Charging mechanism. instead of per kg do people do for example.
1-2 kg RM5
3-5 kg rm8
>5 kg onwards RM2.0o per kg? something like that?
3) I was thinking of something different. Of course folding services will be part of the service but if customer who does not require folding cloths services each kg of cloths will be refunded with RM0.50 maybe? All they need to do is provide their own laundry basket and all dry cleaned shirts will be place back into the basket. This could save loads of time am i right?

I am planning to start small thus for dry cleaning i might just outsource the job to somewhere else.