Ross dry cleaner plans full transition to delivery

A long-standing business soon will be gone, at least from its Ross location.

Duro Cleaners has been a McKnight Road fixture since Dwayne Trimble started offering dry-cleaning services, and it continued after O’Hara resident Joe Ferrante became the owner in 2017.

“The customers were great. They’ve always been great here. They were sad to see Dwayne go, but they were happy to see me step in and take over,” Ferrante said. “Then covid hit, and we took a hit.”

With costs rising for everything he needs to keep Duro Cleaners going, Ferrante decided to shift gears by purchasing a 3,500-square-foot building in Harmar, where he plans to implement a different business model.

“That’s not ideal for retail,” he said about the building, “but delivery has become 60% of our business to date, because of the pandemic. People realized, why don’t I just get it delivered to my house? So then I realized, we don’t need to pay for all this frontage.”

As a result, he faced a decision:

“Do I want to be a retail dry cleaner, or do I want to be a home-delivery dry cleaner?”

Although he chose the latter, his hope is that he maintains his Ross-West View customers, who can expect to receive clean clothes as scheduled. And once he moves, he’ll have plenty of openings for Duro Clean drivers.

Ferrante acknowledged that the switch to delivery from having a walk-in, drive-through location will be disruptive for some people.

“You start to realize it’s a daily habit for them,” he said. “On Wednesdays, they wake up. They get their coffee. They stop at the dry cleaners, and they go to work.

“It’s a dynamic. You’re part of the community as a dry cleaner.”

But the convenience of having clothes dropped off has its appeal.

“I’ve been delivering, myself, the last couple of nights,” Ferrante said. “I’m at people’s houses at 7 o’clock. And not one of them is like, ‘Why are you here so late?’ They’re just so thrilled that they got the service provided to them.”

He further acknowledged that he’s had to pass cost increases along to customers.

“I don’t raise my prices because I want to buy a new car,” he said. “Rent is also involved in that, so with us purchasing a building and doing the delivery route, we’re going to take back some of the cost. So we’re going to stabilize pricing through this.”

Along with home delivery, he plans to place drop-off lockers at strategic locations.

“You can drop your bag off with your dirty clothes in it and scan the QR code. It locks,” Ferrante explained. “Then you get a text message saying it’s done. And you take your clothes right out of the locker. The options with that are endless.”

He’s using texts as one way to notify customers about his intentions.

“If people don’t come and get their stuff, we’ll deliver it back to their house. All they have to do is send a message,” he said.

Actually, he wants everyone to be aware of the transition.

“We’re not sneaking out of town,” Ferrante said, alluding to a football team that actually did: “We’re not doing the Baltimore Colts thing.”