National Clothesline

The list of industry complaints and conditions could have been heard at any gathering of drycleaners in United States.

• Tougher regulations.

• Casual attire and less money spent on drycleaning.

• Lack of training.

• Flat sales.

• Competition from the home washer.

• Inadequate marketing and lack of attention to customers’ needs

• Concern for the future of perc as a drycleaning solvent.

However, all of the above were concerns voiced not by U.S. drycleaners but from their counterparts in other countries during the annual gathering of the International Drycleaners Congress in Frankfurt, Germany, June 8-12

Speakers from Canada, Germany, Japan, China, Australia, Great Britain, Taiwan and China presented overviews of the industry in their respective countries during the State of the International Drycleaning Industry program at the convention. Their words were familiar. Only the languages and the accents were different.

Australians, for example, like to dress casually and they are finding things other than drycleaning to spend their money on. Even drycleaners, reported Shirley Naylor, are wearing washable clothes. She related an experience from a seminar last spring where, as a speaker, she asked everyone in the audience to stand up. Then she asked that everyone who was wearing washable clothing to sit down.

Of 52 people, only six remained standing.

“These people chose washable clothes even though they have their own drycleaning machines,” Naylor said. That, she added, shows “The drop off in drycleaning is about more than the cost of having drycleaning done. It is about how we dress today. So if price is not the issue, we should put our prices up with more confidence.”

She urged cleaners to undertake a series of small price increases. The only people likely to notice and complain will be the “one-item” customers. Who, she asked, should care about them?

Despite the prevalence of washable clothes, the professional cleaner still offers a service that consumers want. “Home laundry equipment is better, but the ironing doesn’t do itself,” Naylor said. Women who work full time don’t want to come home and do ironing, she added. “People pay to have their lawns mowed, their cars cleaned and their pools cleaned and women will pay to send out the dreaded ironing,” she said.

Then there are the home furnishings, curtains, leathers and other specialty goods will need professional attention.

“There will always be a need for a drycleaner. But perhaps not as many. How will you survive?”

She advised cleaners need to be more aggressive in telling customers about their services and ask for more business. “The economy is good. There is no reason why the drycleaner cannot share in the wealth,” she said.

Neglected customers was also a theme of Alexander Seitz, who spoke on conditions in Germany. There, he said, cleaners neglected customers because they were caught up in adjusting to environmental concerns and new regulations. That is now behind them and the focus has turned to the customer. The home washer, not other drycleaners, remains the cleaners’ biggest competitor, Seitz said.

There is more confidence among German cleaners, despite a slow start for the year, he added, with some seeing new opportunities trying to take advantage of them.

Many cleaners in Canada are only now facing the problem of new regulations that devastated the industry in Germany over the past decade. Malcom MacGregor said that many cleaners have closed their plants since the new Canadian regulations on perc took full effect at the beginning of the year. All transfer and vented, non-refrigerated machines are now banned in Canada

“Drycleaners knew that these rules were coming, but many were not prepared when they came into effect, and are going out of business,” he said.

The more progressive cleaners met the criteria several years ago, he noted, and they are still in business and reporting sales that are either flat or up. Many cleaners have diversified into fire and flood restoration, wedding gown cleaning or uniform rental, he added.

Regulations are a factor in Great Britain, too, reported Matthew Barker. But there the concern is more for what might be.

Cleaners wonder if perc will be banned, he said, and current guesses are for a 10- to 15-year life expectancy of the solvent. But so far other solvents have not gained in popularity because of cost, practicality or skepticism.

Casual clothing is holding the industry back in Great Britain, too, and cheaper clothing is also a factor “It costs more to clean a suede jacket than to buy it, and people will clean drycleanable clothing only, not jeans,” Barker said.

Barker also reported on a trend of consolidation in the industry. The Johnson Group recently purchased Sketchley, which was at one time the country’s best known drycleaning company. Safeway, with 160 stores, was just acquired by another company.

Japan, too, is undergoing consolidation. There the number of owners of cleaners has fallen while the number of shops decreased very little, because of companies being bought out by competitors, reported Fumikazu Urano.

Actual expenditures on drycleaning have dropped dramatically he said, but cleaners have not responded well.

“They have not made any reforms in their businesses, such as extending the hours they are open. The key to survival will be to discard old, fixed ideas. We must learn what the customers want and meet their needs,” Urano said.

The industry in Taiwan suffers from a lack of training, according to Dr. Charles Shentu. However, a new technical school is now training new operators to work in or own modern facilities and there will be a laundry license system in place by September.

The most optimistic outlook came from China, where, according to Timothy Choi, there is a growing consumer economy and not many drycleaners to meet the growth.

There are four cities in China with populations over 10 million, he noted, but the drycleaning industry is comparatively small. The largest chain has only 300 stores.

The cleaning quality is inconsistent and there are few services, he said, while standards fluctuate, and some stores are simply schemes of small manufacturers who franchise with little training or effort to control pricing, marketing or quality.

But Chinese businessmen learn fast, Choi said, and there is a large market, growing affluence and increasing quality awareness.

“China is an unstructured market that is rewriting its game rules. It is open for distinctive positioning based on professionalism,” he said, adding that there are great opportunities for European and American drycleaning companies.

Several awards were presented during the IDC banquet. Winner of the prestigious George Shepherd Award for service to the industry was Alexander Seitz of Seitz GmbH, and Jim Barry of GreenEarth Cleaning was named International Drycleaner of the Year.

Awards were also presented to outgoing president Egon Burchard† and retiring executive director Dr. Manfred Wentz.

Also, the first annual Makoto Igarashi Award was presented to Dr. Josef Kurz of the Hohenstein Institute in Germany for his lifetime achievement and service to the drycleaning industry.

IDC’s 2005 convention will be in Orlando, FL, June 19-22, just before the Clean Show. Headquarters will be the Renaissance Orlando Resort at Seaworld, the same hotel that IFI will use for the Clean Show.

IDC convention participants can stay in the same hotel for Clean and take advantage of the free shuttle to the exhibit.

PICTURE WITH CAPTION: From across the ocean to a meeting at dinner, three friends from the U.S. get together around the table in Frankfurt Germany during the IDC convention. From left are Gerry Lieberman, Jim Patterson and Jim Douglas. During the convention, Douglas accepted the International Drycleaner of the Year Award on behalf of his business association, Jim Barry.

PICTURE WITH CAPTION: Manfred Wentz (right) IDC’s outgoing executive director, was honored at the convention. President Egon Burchard presented him with an award for his service to the association.