Copperbeech Research Market research report Tuesday 9 February 2027

Prepared for Soapstone Laundry Co.

Would enough of your neighbors pay for laundry pickup?

Commissioned by Marguerite Dunn, owner. Research and report by Halima Yusuf.

1

The question

Soapstone runs five self-service laundromats. In December you asked us one thing. If you bought a van and offered wash-and-fold with pickup and delivery, would enough households within three miles of a store pay for it, and at what price?

By your own costing, the van, two part-time drivers and an extra folding shift break even at about 420 regular customers.

2

How the research was done

Survey
1,012 adults who do most of their household’s laundry and live within three miles of a Soapstone store. Online, Monday 11 to Sunday 24 January 2027.
Where they came from
780 from a consumer panel and 232 from postcards mailed to 6,000 addresses near the stores. Answers are weighted to each neighborhood’s share of households and its mix of renters and owners.
Price test
Each person saw one price per pound, picked at random: $1.75, $2.25, $2.75 or $3.25. 253 people saw each.
Interviews
16 phone calls of 30 minutes, 1 to 5 February 2027. Nine with people who already pay for laundry, seven with people who said they would.
Margin of error
About 3 points either way on answers from everyone, and about 6 points within one price group.
Who we didn’t ask
Businesses such as salons and gyms, and anyone more than three miles from a store.

3

How big the market is

  1. 186,000households live within three miles of a store.
  2. 63,200are open to paying someone to do their laundry. That is 34% of the people we asked, before they saw a price.
  3. 14,900are likely to use pickup at $2.25 a pound, or 8%. They are worth about $14.5 million a year.
  4. 9,400of those live near Canal Street or Dellwood Avenue. They are worth about $9.1 million a year.

From 34% to 8%. At $2.25, 14 of 253 people said they would definitely use pickup at least once a month, and 39 said probably. People overstate what they will buy, so we counted three in four of the first group and one in four of the second. That leaves about 20 people, or 8%.

The dollars. People open to the idea expect to send about 18 pounds twice a month. At $2.25 a pound that is $40.50 an order and $972 a year.

4

Who they are

Four kinds of household make up the 63,200 that are open to the idea.

38%

Two-job families

24,000 households

About 22 pounds, every week or two. They want nothing lost, and they stay interested at $2.75.

29%

Renters with no washer at home

18,300 households

About 19 pounds, every two weeks. They already carry laundry to a laundromat, often yours. Interest falls fast above $2.25.

19%

Singles and roommates

12,000 households

About 11 pounds, once a month. The least certain group: most said “probably”, few said “definitely”.

14%

Older adults

8,900 households

About 14 pounds, every two weeks. Carrying laundry is hard for them. They want the same driver each time, and a relative often pays.

5

What we found

Finding 1

Interest halves between $2.25 and $2.75 a pound.

$1.75$2.25$2.75$3.25

Share who would definitely or probably use pickup at least once a month, by the price per pound they saw. Dropping to $1.75 wins three points, which is inside the margin of error. Going up to $2.75 loses ten.

Base: 253 people at each price.

Finding 2

Two neighborhoods hold 63% of the likely customers.

Canal Street5,400
Dellwood Avenue4,000
Orchard Park2,800
Millbrook1,400
Eastgate1,300

Households likely to use pickup at $2.25 a pound, by the store they live nearest. The neighborhood samples are small, so trust the order more than the exact numbers.

Base: 1,012 people, 142 to 245 in each neighborhood.

Finding 3

People want reliability more than speed or a low price.

Nothing lost or damaged64%
A one-hour pickup window that is kept58%
Clothes back the next day31%
The lowest price18%
The same driver each time17%
Unscented or gentle detergent12%

Each person picked the two things that matter most, so the bars add up to 200%. In the interviews, 11 of 16 people told a story about something a laundry or dry cleaner had lost.

Base: 344 people open to the idea.

Finding 4

Nine percent already pay for this, and they pay more than $2.25.

62% wash at home 29% use a self-service laundromat 9% pay for wash-and-fold or pickup

The 91 people who already pay report a typical price of $2.60 a pound, so $2.25 is a saving for them. The 294 who use a laundromat spend about two and a half hours a week on it. For them the price buys that time back.

Base: 1,012 people.

6

What this means for your decision

  1. 1
    Go ahead, from two stores.Run pickup from Canal Street and Dellwood Avenue first. Their neighborhoods hold 9,400 likely households. Win one in ten in the first year and you have 940 customers and about $914,000, against a break-even of 420.
  2. 2
    Charge $2.25 a pound.It undercuts the $2.60 people pay today, and interest halves at $2.75. Going lower buys almost nothing.
  3. 3
    Promise the window and the count.Offer one-hour pickup windows and list every item on the receipt. Next-day return is fast enough. Speed came third.
  4. 4
    Start with renters and two-job families.Together they are 67% of the households open to the idea, and the renters already know your stores.

What this research can’t tell you

People told us what they would do. We discounted it, but a survey is not a sale. Businesses were not asked at all.

Treat the first 12 weeks as the real test. 150 regular customers across the two stores by week 12 would put break-even within reach inside a year.