Business Environment Assignment : Mobile laundry folding service

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Executive Summary
Mobile laundry folding service is start-up business that looks to provide the service on a
door-to-door basis. The business will be established in Bloomsbury London. The business will
not have a physical retail store but will operate on a motorized vehicle. The mission of the
business is to provide a service that is time saving with quality and convenience to its customers.
The payment terms that will be available to customers would either be on delivery or credit card
billing each month. The services will be provided on contractual basis or on order basis. The
ongoing health crisis and the busy lives of full time stay at home parents is the main market
niche. The business will adopt the 4Ps in their marketing plan and under promotion, it will adopt
the concentrated marketing strategy. The business sales forecast increases gradually over the
years and the same case applies to the business profitability, substantial growth is expected.

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Table of Contents
Introduction 3
1.0 Mobile Laundry Folding Service Entrepreneurial Idea 3
2.0 Services 4
3.0 Market Opportunity Analysis 4
4.0 Marketing Plan 6
4.1 Price 6
4.2 Promotion 7
4.3 Place 7
4.4 Product 8
5.0 Financial Forecast 8
5.1 Break-Even Analysis 9
5.2 Sales Forecast 9
Conclusion 9
Bibliography 11

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Introduction
Folding clothes happens to be one of the challenging tasks in most if not all households.
Most individuals who find this task challenging are stay-at-home working parents as well as
those who work full time. This report will be a business plan of a mobile laundry folding services
business idea that will include the services being provided, the market opportunity analysis that
will indicate that there is a niche for this idea and the strategy that the business aims to employ in
their pricing distribution and marketing and finally the financial projections based on realistic
and accessible projections
1.0 Mobile Laundry Folding Service Entrepreneurial Idea
Mobile laundry folding service will be a start-up that will be established as a limited
liability company. The company will offer purely laundry folding services to households from
motorized vehicles. The mobile laundry folding services aim to take care of the task that either
most individuals hate doing or have limited time to handle. The business will neither have a
production facility nor a retail store as is the case with most laundry cleaning and folding
services in London. The business will have several vans and customer services trained
employees and derivers who will move from one household to another providing the service
based on calls. Financing for the start-up will be through bank loans and owners' investments.
The legal form of business as mentioned above will be Limited Liability Company and being a
small business, there will be no need for its finances to be publicly disclosed. The procedures of
registering the business are simple and the business can begin its. operations within the shortest
time possible. Bookkeeping duties and responsibilities will be in the hands of the founder
(Reddy, Goel and Udala, 2011).

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2.0 Services
As mentioned above, the business will only provide laundry folding services however it
will be open for the provision of other related services such as closet designing and organisation
in the near future. Taking up the service by the customers will be in two ways which include
signing contracts whereby the customers will be able to get the service regularly but based on a
schedule. The customer could also order for the service through the business website, e-mail, or
telephone. All these ways will depend on what is convenient for the customers. The contract
signing approach, however, happens to be the most convenient given that with busy daily
schedules there may be instances where one would forget to order through telephone, e-mail, or
business website (Stutely, 2012).
Payment means are also different depending on the convenience of the customer. The
customer can decide to pay upon delivery of the services that is when the folding is done or
through credit card billing every month. Those customers that are on contract with the mobile
laundry folding service will receive monthly statements with the itemized service fees. The only
operation facility that the business will have is for parking the vans and small office space for
those employees who will be handling or receiving orders either through e-mail, telephones, or
through the business website. Being a service that is provided through a motorized vehicle, no
retail shop will be needed and this will be cost-saving on the operation side of the business
(Doyle, 2013).
3.0 Market Opportunity Analysis
The primary target customers that the business will look at are the residents of
Bloomsbury London however it will also aim at extending these services to other districts within
London. The main target customers for the mobile laundry folding services are the stay-at-home

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working parents and full-time employed customers. The total population of Bloomsbury based
on the demographic research shows that the area has about 11, 000 people and this makes it a
perfect market for this kind of start-up business. Over the years, trends in the income of
individuals, employment, and gross domestic product in London have been increasing and this
has led to the rising of their standards of living. This has in return led to individuals having
minimal or no time at all to do most of their housework (Brownlie, 1994).
Laundry happens to be one of those house works that are abandoned in this situation and
thanks to the automatic machines things have been made much easier. With the ongoing Covid-
19 pandemic, people have been forced to work from home, there have been lockdowns, schools
have closed and businesses as well particularly the dry-cleaning and laundry services. Studies
have shown that due to the pandemic and the economic slowdown thereafter, the dry-cleaning
and laundry services market has significantly decreased due to social distancing measures placed
by the government and other related factors. With automatic washing machines, doing one or
two loads of laundry a day happens to be very easy and fast but then when it comes to folding
them it becomes impossible. This is simply because its time consuming and also because most
individuals hate doing it (Van der Merwe, 2018).
Studies have shown that one of the major factors in choosing such a service by
individuals is mainly for convenience purposes as opposed to the price. As individual income
increases, people will go for those services that will save the most time and effort. The market
already has several dry-cleaning and laundry services but this business will provide the
convenience of door-to-door folding service particularly at this time when people are staying and
working from home due to Covid-19. In Bloomsbury London, the only competition that the
business might face is the dry cleaning/laundry businesses but with the current times where most

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households or individuals own automatic washing machines, this does come as a threat to the
business. With the door-to-door folding services, the business has the potential to win a lot of
customers given that their peace of mind will be enhanced and at the same time receive the
convenience that comes with it including time-saving (Research Markets, 2020).
4.0 Marketing Plan
Under the marketing plan for the mobile laundry folding services business, we will
consider the 4Ps which include price, promotion, place, and product.
4.1 Price
One of the secrets to the success of any business is in the market today is having
competitive and timely pricing. When a business pricing is done correctly chances of boosting
the sales, profits maximization, and long-term growth of the business are quite high. Incorrect
pricing of products or services on the other hand could lead to problems that would cause
business failure. Before setting prices for either products or services there are a few factors that
should be considered. Concerning our business, the factors include the value that it brings to the
customers and what the customers have to say. Under normal circumstances, start-up businesses
have a tendency of setting their initial prices being lower than those of their competitors
(Marketing Specialist, 2018).
This is however not the approach that mobile laundry folding services will take given that
the business will incur a higher cost in the door-to-door service delivery and in the promotion
strategy to establish the brand name as well as rise customer awareness. The price scheme for
mobile laundry folding service will be based on per service price. The other reason for the
business not setting lower prices is because the business target market is those individuals who
will give anything at any cost to save time and achieve convenience and quality of service.

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Studies have shown that those individuals in the economy who have access to higher disposable
income are willing and able to pay for more customer service, quality, features, and convenience
(Laundry Solution Company, 2015).
4.2 Promotion
Mobile laundry folding service will adopt a concentrated marketing strategy whose
promotion mix will consist of sales promotion, advertising, personal selling, and public relations.
Given that out of the entire target market, the most population is made up of the millennials and
this means that the promotional mix will be concentrated on social media platforms. The
business will mainly utilize Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter social media platforms (Doyle,
2013). The business will also advertise the laundry folding service in the local press and public
areas for example in supermarkets, train stations, shopping centers, and buses among other areas.
Mobile laundry folding service will also create advertising materials such as pamphlets among
other materials which they will drop into mailboxes of households and families. The business
will also promote itself by giving an offer to those customers who sign a contract with the
business for at least six months. The offer will be an incentive to the customers, a 10% discount
on the service price. Finally, the business will offer lower price coupons to those customers that
will be loyal (Abrams, 2019).
4.3 Place
The business will deal with customers directly, particularly at their house at their
convenience. The choice of the business to be mobile and have to a retail store is to save on cost.
Mobile laundry folding services will move from house to house based on the placed order.
Urgent orders that may be requested by customers would only be accommodated upon

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acceptance by the customer to pay an additional nominal fee on top of the price of normal
service (Van der Merwe, 2018, p. 145.
4.4 Product
The business will offer door-to-door laundry folding services between 10 AM to 6 PM on
working days only. The business intends to provide convenient and time-saving laundry folding
services (Reddy, Goel and Udala, 2011, p. 2).
5.0 Financial Forecast
As mentioned above the finances to cater for the start-up expenses will be raised from
commercial loans and owners' equity capital. The business owners will invest $20,000 then the
additional capital will be raised from a borrowed bank loan of $7,000. The lending plan is
required to be done and submitted to the bank at least 6 months before the commencement of the
business. The annual interest rate on the loan will be at 10%.
Start-up Funding
Start-up Expenses $10,000
Start-up Assets $14,000
Total Required Funding $24,000
Assets
Start-up non-cash assets $9,000
Start-up cash requirement $5,000
Additional cash raised $3,500
Starting date cash balance $8,500
Total assets $17,500
Liabilities and Capital
Liabilities
Current Borrowing $0
Long-term Loan $7,000
Accounts payable $0
Total Liabilities $7,000
Capital

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Owners’ Equity $20,000
Additional investment $0
Total Investments $20,000
Start-up Expenses ($10,000)
Total Capital $10,000
Total Capital and Liabilities $17,000
Total Funding $27,000
5.1 Break-Even Analysis
The business will begin to get profit at the point where the revenue received is greater
than the break-even point. Based on the forecast, the demand for laundry folding services will
continue to go high as years goes by and the more satisfied the customers the higher the profit of
the business.
5.2 Sale Forecast
Sales Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
Laundry Folding
services
$36,892 $41,960 $57,544
Direct Cost of sales Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
Laundry Folding
services
$4,027 $8,235 $11,706
Conclusion
Mobile laundry folding service business aims to provide services to those parents
working from home and other full-time customers. This is particularly a niche in the current
situation where many companies have allowed their employees to work due to the ongoing
health crisis. The marketing plan of the business is based on the 4Ps and the business will adopt a
concentrated marketing strategy. The promotional mix will include sales promotion, advertising,

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personal selling, and public relations. The business funding will be from commercial loans and
owners' equity capital.

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Bibliography
Abrams, R., 2019. Successful business plan. Palo Alto: Planning Shop.
Brownlie, D., 1994. Market opportunity analysis. Tourism Management, 15(1), pp.37-45.
Doyle, P., 2013. Value-based marketing. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.
Laundry Solution Company, 2015. Laundromat Pricing Strategy - Laundry Solutions Company.
[online] Laundry Solutions Company. Available at:
<https://www.laundrysolutionscompany.com/laundromat-pricing-strategy/> [Accessed 17
April 2021].
Lee, D., 2019. Foldimate’s laundry-folding machine actually works now. [online] The Verge.
Available at: <https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/7/18171441/foldimate-laundry-folding-
robot-ces-2019> [Accessed 17 April 2021].
Marketing Specialist, 2018. Six Pricing Strategies For Dry Cleaning Services. [online] Enlite.
Available at: <https://enlitepos.com/blog/six-pricing-strategies-for-dry-cleaning-services/>
[Accessed 17 April 2021].
Reddy, K., Goel, V. and Udala, K., 2011. Door-to-Door Laundry & Corporate Laundry - The
Exclusive Business Plan for Emerging Economies. SSRN Electronic Journal,.
Research Markets, 2020. Global Dry-Cleaning and Laundry Services Market Analysis 2020-30:
COVID-19 Impact and Recovery. [online] GlobeNewswire News Room. Available at:
<https://www.globenewswire.com/fr/news-release/2020/09/10/2091758/0/en/Global-Dry-
Cleaning-and-Laundry-Services-Market-Analysis-2020-30-COVID-19-Impact-and-
Recovery.html> [Accessed 17 April 2021].

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Stutely, R., 2012. The Definitive Business Plan. Hallbergmoos: Financial Times/Prentice Hall.
Van der Merwe, J., 2018. Marketing strategies. Mowbray: Future Managers.