🧠 7 Fatal Mistakes That Laundry Owners Often Make (and Don't Realize)

As laundry business owners, we often think that the important thing is that the machine is spinning and the clothes are clean. But in practice, many business problems actually come from the mindset and decisions of the owner himself.

Here are 7 mistakes that are often made without realizing it — and can be the difference between a laundry that survives for years and one that closes in the first year.

1. Focus on Order Quantity, Not Profit Margin

Many owners feel proud when they receive a large order, but forget to calculate the margin.

Take for example: receiving an order for 30 kg of hotel sheets at a low price can be a loss if electricity, water, and time are not efficient.

Solution:

Focus on orders that provide profitability, not just volume. Use a system like Dicatetin to see which services are the most profitable based on real-time reports.

2. Not Building a System — It All Depends on the Owner

Owners become cashiers, operators, even couriers. When the owner is sick or on vacation, operations are stalled.

Solution:

Start building a work system and flow that the team can run without the owner's presence.

Use tools like Dicatetin to make delegation easier:

• Employees can input orders
• Reports can still be accessed by the owner from their cellphone

3. Ignoring Customer Experience

The clothes are clean, but customers are upset because:

• The laundry is mixed up
• No receipt
• No laundry status update
• Hard to contact

Solution:

Build a pleasant experience.

💡 Provide a digital receipt from Dicatetin

💬 Save customer contacts to send automatic info via WhatsApp

🎁 Offer loyalty points or subscription discounts

4. Failure to Separate Business and Personal Money

This is a classic but deadly mistake.

The owner mixes laundry income with household expenses. At the end of the month, confused about where the money went.

Solution:

• Use 1 special business account
• Record all transactions & expenses daily
• Apps like Dicatetin allow you to see net profit without manual calculations

5. Not Looking at Data to Make Decisions

What is the total turnover this month? What services are the best sellers? How many new customers this week? If all the answers are still "guess", it means that your business decisions are not based on data.

Solution:

View the business report on the Dicatetin dashboard. You can see:

• Daily order trends
• Active customers
• Weekly & monthly turnover
• And most importantly: make decisions based on numbers, not feelings.

6. Changing Prices Too Often

Changing prices because you follow your competitors makes customers confused and doubtful.

Worse still, sometimes employees don't know that prices have changed.

Solution:

Determine prices based on cost of goods sold and target margins.

Use a digital cashier system like Dicatetin so that prices are consistent, promos can be set without making manual receipts anymore.

7. No Long-Term Goals

Many laundry owners just live their days without direction.

Without a target, the business is just “marking the same place” and is difficult to develop.

Solution:

Determine goals for the next 6 months – 1 year, for example:

• Add 30 new customers
• Add 1 employee
• Open a second branch
• Monitor the achievement with data from Dicatetin so that it is measurable and realistic.

Conclusion

Mistakes in the laundry business are not always technical. Mindset, decisions, and how to manage a business are the keys.

By realizing the 7 mistakes above, you are one step closer to making your business more professional, profitable, and ready to grow.

Use a system that supports business growth, such as Dicatetin – a laundry cashier application that not only records transactions, but also helps you see business potential from real numbers.