Miele Opens Its First Self-Service Laundry In Portugal, Almost Two Years Later Than Expected

Miele has opened its first two self-service laundry in the Portuguese market, two years later than expected. Bloomst, the self-service laundry brand from Miele, has emerged with two stores in Greater Lisbon, already joining over 80 stores in the Iberian Peninsula.

After the opening of the first two stores, the company details the expansion plan. In a statement, the company indicated that it intends to bring back the “franchising” model, and “in the next two years”, reach the opening of “more than 20 stores across the country.”

For this purpose, the expansion project expects an investment of about 1 million euros for the brand. Of this amount, “600,000 euros will be invested in building warehouses, through local companies,” the company explains.

In July 2019, The German hardware brand’s automatic washbasin series has advanced to Negócios which will enter Portugal later that year. According to a source from the company, the first laundry had an expected opening date of “expected October” of 2019. For 2020, expansion plans in Portugal included the opening of 10 more spaces, Negócios official source informed.

“We think Portugal is a very attractive market for our brand. In fact, we ended up spotting an opportunity with the concern many people nowadays have in terms of hygiene and cleaning their clothes. In this sense, we are committed to our very own – laundry service. High tech and safe service as a way to give the consumer convenience and quality of service,” notes Gianluca Valcke, head of Bloomest-Miele Group’s expansion to Spain and Portugal, in a statement.

About the Franchise model available in Portugal, the company states that “no percentage of the store’s rent value or any start-up fee/commission is charged to the investor.” Blumst notes that the basic investment to open a laundry “calls for values ​​in the order of €50,000”. The company also notes that in this model, the company is committed to providing technical and operational support, which will be provided by Miele in Portugal.

The company notes that these automatic laundries will have a “strong technological component,” which is specifically for remote warehouse management. According to company officials, through a smartphone app, a store manager can “control the number of customers in each store, laundry habits, time preferences, and other basic data to adapt to each location’s business model.”

Customers will also have access to an app, where they can see if there are machines available for washing or control the time of washing. In Spain, the company is also testing another service called Locker Tecnológico, where soiled clothes can be left in the closet and a choice of when to wash, dry and iron. The service has begun in Tenerife and the company says it expects to have cabinets of this type “in all of its stores in Spain and also in future openings in Portugal”.

Bloomst was born in Italy in 2005. These laundries are also found in Austria, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Malta, as well as Spain.