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FAIRFIELD, Iowa — To help those affected by Hurricane Sandy, the employee-owners of Dexter Laundry and Dexter Financial are available to laundry owners who have seen their equipment damaged by flooding.

Dexter has posted flood-damage repair tips on its website, and is offering equipment damage analysis, priority technical support, and expedited replacement orders with special financing to those impacted by the storm.

Qualifying laundry owners in the Hurricane Sandy-affected areas of New York and New Jersey are eligible for up to six months of no payments, with no origination or documentation fees, along with a special allowance for installation and start-up costs. Customers wishing to pay off their loan after recovery from their insurer or other agency will face no prepayment penalties.

“The employee-owners at Dexter and Dexter Financial are very familiar with the long recovery period from such devastating damage,” says Kevin Hietpas, director of sales for Dexter Laundry. “During the summer of 2008, many areas of Iowa were damaged by historic flooding, so we are sensitive to owners who are rebuilding in the affected areas, and we are on hand for assistance as customers need us.”

Owners needing assistance who call Dexter Financial (800-926-8230) or Dexter Laundry (800-524-2954) will be connected to the authorized distributors for their area for free equipment analysis and expedited assistance.

FRANKFURT, Germany — Every four years, Frankfurt hosts the Texcare International trade show. Also known as the World Market for Modern Textile Care, much of the show’s focus is on industrial laundry and dry cleaning.

But during the five-day event in early May, there were opportunities to see coin laundry equipment amidst the tunnel washers, rail systems and finishing equipment. A handful of U.S.-based exhibitors displayed or promoted coin equipment to an international trade audience.

Alliance Laundry Systems presented a sizable booth featuring a wide variety of equipment. One of its brands, IPSO, showcased a fully operational vended laundry. Visitors to the booth were able to see how the machines process clothing and linens and how advanced controls help owners increase energy efficiencies.

The display included eight of IPSO’s new HD softmount washer-extractors and three DR tumblers. The washers operated using the Cygnus standard control and were connected to a central pay system. The tumblers featured the DX4 control.

“At IPSO, we know our products work hard to get the job done and it’s important for customers to see that, too,” says John Balman, senior director of sales—Europe for Alliance Laundry Systems. “Having a fully operational coin store at Texcare gives us the opportunity to not only describe how a Laundromat works, but to actually allow our visitors to experience it.”

Another Alliance brand, Speed Queen, promoted its relaunch to the international market. Its various segments, including vended, multi-housing, on-premises and home, have been united under a single brand identity that includes a new look, feel and message platform focused on Speed Queen’s key attributes.

Maytag Commercial Laundry successfully launched a new stack washer-dryer combo for the international export market. “So far, it’s been very popular for both distributors as well as end-users,” says Craig Kirchner, director of global commercial laundry for Maytag. “We’re getting both in the booth to talk about it.”

There was a lot of interest from dealers and potential customers from Eastern Europe and the Middle East. “They’re interested in taking it on because there aren’t a lot of options out there, specifically in this smaller (8-10 kg) equipment. … I’ve talked to a lot of guys in Europe that are going to be put those in coin laundry stores … because they don’t have as much space like the big Laundromats in the United States. These are perfect for that type of venue.”

Dexter Laundry is seeking to open up new international markets and used Texcare International to introduce or, for a number of attendees, reintroduce its brand of coin and OPL laundry equipment, says Kevin Hietpas, Dexter’s vice president of sales and marketing.

“We’re very happy that customers seem to recognize us,” he says. ”They’ll comment, ‘Hey, we’ve heard of you. We’ve never seen you before.’ By reputation, they’re interested in hearing more.”

Dexter is active in Italy and is looking to become more active elsewhere, he says. “We’ll follow up with a lot of potential opportunities from here. Some will turn into customers immediately, others may turn into customers down the road. We’re trying to approach the show from a very long-term perspective.”

To be successful in international markets, it’s vital that a manufacturer have a reputable, reliable distributor network. “Developing a distributor is a long-term process,” says Lee Wilson, director of international sales for Dexter. “It’s a partnership. It’s not something where we’re going to come in here and we’re just going to sign up a distributor. We’ve got to get to know them, they’ve got to get to know us.”

LG Electronics, which launched its family of card, coin and on-premise laundry equipment at last year’s Clean Show, exhibited at Texcare for the first time.

Other Texcare exhibitors that were listed as offering coin laundry equipment included Fagor Industrial (Spain), Krebe-Tippo (Slovenia), Miele (Germany) and Renzacci (Italy). American Dryer Corp. and Pellerin Milnor Corp., which offer coin laundry equipment among their product lines, exhibited but were not listed in the Texcare guide under that category.

John Riddle, Riddle & Associates, and David Cotter, CEO of the Textile Care Allied Trades Association, manned a booth promoting next year’s Clean Show in New Orleans. “For us, we made a decision many years ago that the Clean Show was an integral part of the world community of laundry and dry cleaning,” says Riddle, whose firm has managed the Clean Show for nearly two decades. “The way you show that support is you come and participate in these types of events.

“We wanted to show support, we have a lot of American manufacturers here and we wanted them to know that we’re here. … Plus, it exposed the attendee, the operator, the dry cleaner, the coin wash dealer, in all these countries … to what the Clean Show really was.”

Texcare International registered a 3% increase in attendance from the previous show in 2008. Altogether, 15,800 trade visitors from 100 countries attended the trade fair. More than half of all visitors (52%) came from outside Germany.

There were 264 exhibitors hailing from 26 nations in Hall 8 and the adjoining Galleria. Top exhibitor nations after Germany were Italy, the United States, Belgium, the Netherlands and Great Britain.

JAMAICA, N.Y. — After 16 months of preparation and renovation, Gold Coin Laundry Equipment opened its new showroom and expanded parts department last week.

The showroom featuring fully operational Dexter washers and dryers is part of a 5,000-square-foot expansion that converted old, empty warehouse space, the distributor says.

Gold Coin President Douglas Pratt says the company had customers in mind while planning the expansion. “At times, our parts customers were crammed in at the counter. Now, with a total of 13,000 square feet to work with, that doesn’t happen; plus, we have more room to stock more items and disappoint fewer customers.”

Besides the Dexter equipment, Gold Coin now has room to display the Whirlpool line, plus ancillary products such as Vend-Rite soap venders, change machines by Standard Change-Makers, and a NATCO on-demand water heater. Customers can even try out Standard’s easyPAY kiosk.

Gold Coin has scheduled several events this year, including a March 28-29 grand opening, to show its customers the full potential of the equipment it sells.

The new showroom and expanded parts department is located next door to the distributor’s original location, 91-16 143rd St. in Jamaica.

CHICAGO — You’ve come to a point where you’re considering opening a new coin laundry. But should you build it from the ground up, or should you look at rehabilitating an existing store? What are the pros and cons of each?

“There are great arguments for both sides, but there are some catches that you want to look at, whether you’re buying a new store or retooling a store,” says J.D. Dixon, owner and president of National Laundry Equipment, a Huebsch distributor based in Nashville, Tenn. “Both can be great investments.”

Robert Renteria, president of Midwest Laundries, Chicago, and a regular contributor to AmericanCoinOp.com, says he’s seen more “born-again” laundries than ever before in the past year. “The key now is to find laundry locations that are in operating condition but in need of a facelift, or that are closed but have an up side when the competition and demographics are taken into account.”

Setting the laundry apart from its competition has to be at the heart of the decision-making process, advises Carl Graham, vice president of coin sales for Scott Equipment, a Dexter distributor based in Houston, Texas. “Unless you build a bigger, better burger, they’re not going to come.”

Infrastructure

When building new, you can start from the ground up to create a clean, modern infrastructure so it can handle the laundry equipment you plan to install, Dixon says.

“A lot of times, the problem we run into with retools is the owner wants to put in a whole new bunch of equipment and you walk in and find out, ‘Wow, we’ve got some serious infrastructure issues.’”

You may discover that the electric, water or gas service is insufficient for your project’s needs, or may even be substandard because “unlicensed electricians and gas people” have done the work in the past.

“You find wires and lines and plumbing going in all different directions,” Dixon says. “You wonder why the equipment acts like it has a ghost in it, and it’s really not the equipment. It’s really your infrastructure. You’re bleeding amps, or something weird is happening.

“That happens more often than not in a retool. It’s pretty amazing when you walk into these places and you see how things have been set up. And it seems like the older the laundry, the worse it is.”

But that isn’t always the case, according to Graham. “Rehabbing has its definite advantages, because you have most of your infrastructure in place. You just have to modify stuff.”

You can eliminate any concerns about infrastructure issues with new construction, according to Dixon.

“You don’t have any of those problems with a new store,” he says. “You get to put it in the way it’s supposed to be, and you know that you’re not going to have any odd issues with your equipment.”

Design

From the outset, building a new store provides the owner with what amounts to a blank canvas. There will be some constraints based on the space available, but the opportunity exists to design a store that is highly efficient and thus equipped to get customers in and out in the shortest time possible.

“You can tailor the space exactly to the demographics of your area,” Dixon says. “You can tailor the ergonomics of the space. You can tailor even the way the building is lit and colored, location, painted, and floored, everything, based on the folks that are living around there.”

What works in one store may not work in another. For example, you might choose a color scheme for a Miami store that you wouldn’t for a store in Lexington, Ky.

Rehabbing an existing store presents limitations, Dixon says, and Graham adds that a project could turn out to be more expensive than buying new if extensive work is necessary.

“You’re limited on your space and your setup,” Dixon says. “A lot of times, when you’re retooling a store, it’s going to be hard to change the ergonomics. Unless you want to get into tearing up the floor and rerunning drain lines, things like that, you’re basically going to put equipment where equipment already stood.”

“You might have to gut the whole place out and sometimes it costs more to rehab a place than to build new,” Graham says.

Advances in laundry equipment, particularly a shift from top loaders to front loaders, can enable a new owner to fit more capacity into the same space, Graham says.

“I’ve got two 7,000-square-foot stores that I’m revamping right now,” he says. “We’re reducing the stores by a third but we’re increasing the volume of capacity they can have and reducing their electrical and water usage.”

Building new means a much more extensive project than a rehab. “There’s going to be a whole lot of construction on this that you’re hoping to miss on the retool,” Dixon says.

Tomorrow: Location, risk, regulation and which is easier...

FAIRFIELD, Iowa — Dexter Laundry has selected Gold Coast Laundry Equipment, Brisbane, Australia, as its 2010 Distributor of the Year. A Dexter distributor since 2003, the full-service company is led by Phil Hodges and Larry Rock.

From their headquarters in Brisbane, they and their local dealers provide Dexter coin-op and on-premise laundry products and services throughout Australia, New Zealand, and many islands in the South Pacific.

Dexter presents its Distributor of the Year award annually in recognition of overall excellence in the sales, service and promotion of its front-load washers, drying tumblers, Easy Card™ systems, and equipment financing for the on-premise and commercial laundry industries.

In accepting the award, Rock was quick to recognize Gold Coast Laundry’s loyal customers and dealers for making the award possible. “We consider them as partners in our business and in Dexter’s business in Australia, and we’re thankful for each and every one of them.”