Anyone Offer mat rental services?

[Scott S.]

I was thinking about offering Mat rental services to my commercial customers.. i would switch out the old mat with a fresh one and clean the mat back at my place.

So i have some questions:

How much to charge or average sized mat say 3'x5'
(remember i will be picking up and dropping off these mats)

Do you have them on a contract?

 

[Scott S.]

Ok, so im guessing that its a no to anyone offering mat rental services

 

[Paul Demers]

CINTAS offers this service. They are a Canadian company that operates in the U.S. also.. They are located in our area of Pennsylvania, and I think they are pretty much nationwide. Not sure they are in your area. here is link

http://www.cintas.com/FacilityServices/MatServices.aspx

 

[Bjorn]

I'm making millions with this right now

what do you want to know?

 

[Mikey P]

Caesar owns the whole eastern seaboard mat rental conglomerate.

 

[Derek]

i posted a similar question on the Encap forum today.

i am GUESSING that the price would hardly cover my gas :?

but i've no clue...looking forward to more answers tomorrow.

 

[daniel@procarpet]

The answer is every time you see a uniform rental bread truck, remember they are loaded with mats. They can send a truck out to 30 businesses and pick up 4 or 5 mats at each location and clean those mats in a commercial wash machine and also offer uniform cleaning or rental at the same time. They make good money doing it, but just doing a couple rugs here and there probably wouldn't work. My best friend has me clean his restaurant and even he uses a mat service because the do a good job and the price is dirt cheap.

 

[ACE]

Mikey Brummett Used to do this. I'm sure he lost his azz. let the uniform companys do they are set up for it and charge $4 or $5 for each mat.

 

[bob vawter]

i SURE that you'd hafta have liability ins up the waZOO.....

 

[R W]

I tried that service about 15 years ago. Started with a local motel. Had to purchase double of everything.......one to place, one to clean. And everyone wanted different colors. Plus, you had to have a place to extract and dry these buggers. Then of course, every month, 1 or 2 would come up missing.

Hard to compete with the big rental companies.

 

[Scott S.]

Ok thanks guys.. so in other words. Dont do it..

 

[Ed]

Unless you have the cash or credit to purchase the laundering equipment needed for this, your time and effort could be spent chasing more profitable things that are more in line with the industry you are in. Walk off mats have 2 things in common with carpet. They are flat and they lay on the floor. Not much after that. Businesses that use walk off mats view them as a commodity that people wipe their feet on. They want 2 things out of a supplier. Cheap and reliable. The cleaning and supply of them has more to do with laundry than carpet cleaning. That's why you see all of your uniform and linen suppliers offering this service. Manual cleaning on a large scale (large scale is what you have to do to make a living at it) is cost prohibitive.

 

[rick imby]

Great thread,

Thanks