So you want to open a laundry in Pattaya

So you want to open a laundry in Pattaya

Thought I give you new comers some friendly advice on what to do if you want to open a business in Thailand. I will give you a few examples that I know and seen myself and I will use an example I saw just the other day for the first lesson.

One farang with a Thai girl is starting a brand new laundry shop in south Pattaya. He has got it all figured out with the new shop house and the brand new ceramic tiles on the floors and wall and big shiny counter. He even has a big sign in blue that says Laundry in English. No signs of washing machines but maybe they are on the second floor.

So is the laundry in his name? Or even the house? Well then he needs a work permit and a company with 50 000 Baht plus few thousands a month just for paper work and taxes. If the house and laundry in the girls name then he risk losing it when they start fighting and they will sooner or later.

Now the laundry looks like a big luxury mall in this kind of slow area and you can see it from far away. The big sign need a Thai name on the top or you have to pay huge taxes on the sign but I guess nobody told him. When the tax people come they will have a fight because the girls forget to tell him.

The girl also forget to tell him that Thai people do not go to places that look like a big luxury mall if there is no free air con and free TV to look at. They think new shiny places are expensive so they rather go down the street where old grandma washes for 5 THB a piece.

They also want to see the washing machine and the laundry actually are being done in the shop because they want to see that you really do it. Sending it away will cost more money so that is not good.

Since the washing machines are on the second floor you need at least two staffs to take care of the shop and not one as they normally have in the small cheap laundry places. Since the girlfriend might be working for a while you need another person and that means more problems and of course more costs.

Then the area, nobody is living in this place. The big apartment blocks are on the other side of the road and they already have small laundry places. Also there is no parking so big customers with money that might have been visiting the laundry shop will not come because they can not park the big cars.

So because the place looks to expensive to Thais and have no Thai sign, the local Thais will not come. There are no local farrang in this area just some Arabs down the other end of the road but they already have a closer washing place, besides the sign is not in Arabic.

He probably tries it out for a few months; maybe he even can stay on top of the laundry if he is clever to save money. But in the end he will start fighting with the girl when no customers is coming and they will break up and if he is lucky the house is in his name otherwise he has to go back to his country as many others have.

There is also another scenario and that is when the farrang needs the girl to do something when he is away. He hate people being lazy and he can not stand the girl who just sits in the new house doing nothing. So he buys her this laundry so he does not have to send her money. She says yes because why not he want to give her all this she do not say no, after all she can sell the place when he’s gone. Do not ever force a Thai girl to do something they do not want to do. When I say force I mean even suggest. They will say yes to anything you say because anything is better then they have now.