Features · Laundry lockers
Cole Norton on Laundry Lockers, Unattended Drop-Off, and Pickup and Delivery Revenue
The developer behind the locker feature on what unattended drop-off actually solves, and where it fits against scheduled pickup and delivery.
- ●Cole Norton was the primary developer behind the laundry lockers feature in Wash-Dry-Fold POS.
- ●Unattended drop-off means a customer can leave laundry outside staffed hours, so the store captures orders it would otherwise turn away.
- ●A locker drop-off lands in the POS as a real order, which is what keeps it in the same tracking and billing flow as everything else.
- ●Lockers and scheduled pickup and delivery solve different problems, and a store can run both without one cannibalising the other.
- ●The practical lesson: lockers add capacity at the edges of the day, which is usually cheaper than adding staffed hours.
Laundry lockers let a customer drop off or collect an order when nobody is at the counter, which turns closed hours into usable hours. Cole Norton was the primary developer on the feature and walks through how a drop-off flows into the POS, how it differs from scheduled pickup and delivery, and what size of store it makes sense for.
This article is based on an episode
Laundry Lockers – New Feature from Wash-Dry-Fold POS
Laundromat Ownership · Episode 16 · with Cole Norton, Wash-Dry-Fold POS
What Laundry Lockers Do for a Laundromat
Laundry lockers are one of the most requested features in laundromat software, and Wash-Dry-Fold POS just shipped them. Laundry lockers are secure drop-off and pickup compartments at your laundromat that let customers leave dirty laundry and collect finished wash-dry-fold orders without needing an attendant at the counter. Cole Norton, one of the developers who pushed the new laundry locker system across the finish line, joined the podcast to walk through how it works.
The feature grew out of the same push behind the company’s pickup and delivery software. As Cole put it, the goal was to find more ways to increase revenue and get more customers dropping off laundry, not just to bolt on another delivery option. Laundry lockers do exactly that by removing the requirement that a customer’s schedule line up with your staffed hours.
🔑 Insider Key
Laundry lockers are a revenue play first. They let you capture wash-dry-fold orders from customers who can’t make it in during attended hours, which is volume most laundromats simply leave on the table.
Laundry Lockers Work With Any Setup You Already Have
One of the most common questions Cole gets is whether you need a specific brand of hardware. You don’t. The team built the laundry locker system to be deliberately open, so it works with whatever storage you already have or want to buy.
On one end, you can run high-tech smart lockers with their own apps and access codes. On the other, you can use what most of Wash-Dry-Fold POS’s customers actually have: a box with a master lock on it. As Ian described it, plenty of owners ask, “I’ve got a box that I put a master lock on. Do I have lockers now?” The answer is yes. The software doesn’t care about the hardware, so you’re not forced into an expensive purchase to get started.
Inside the settings, owners choose how they want to run it. You can set up a single drop box, indoors or outdoors, or you can configure individually numbered lockers, one through ten or however many you have. Some stores collect everything through a single drop point and return finished orders in individual lockers. Others use individual lockers for both drop-off and pickup. Both models are supported.
Running an Unattended Laundromat With Laundry Lockers
Ian is on record warning that nothing good happens in your laundromat at 2 a.m. He’s skeptical of fully unattended stores, and the podcast has hosted plenty of top operators who say the same. But laundry lockers open up a middle path that doesn’t require leaving your whole store wide open overnight.
Cole confirmed the system works completely unattended. The practical setup is to give customers access to a locked entryway, an outdoor drop box, or a bank of lockers, while the main floor with your POS and back-of-house stays closed. A customer drops off laundry, notifies you it’s there, and the order sits securely until your store is open and staffed to process it. Once it’s done, you notify the customer it’s ready and hand off the locker code.
🔑 Insider Key
You don’t have to choose between fully attended and fully unattended. Laundry lockers let you offer after-hours drop-off through a locked entry or outdoor box while keeping the staffed part of your store closed and secure.
This is where the laundry locker system earns its keep. If only part of your building is accessible after hours, or the lockers sit just outside the building, customers can drop off anytime while the laundromat itself stays locked down. It’s a way to extend your effective hours without paying for overnight staff.
The Customer Drop-Off Experience
There are two ways a customer can use your laundry lockers. The first runs through My Laundry Order, the online scheduling app built into Wash-Dry-Fold POS that current subscribers already use for pickup and delivery. Customers see a list of available lockers, or your drop box, and reserve one. They specify how many bags they’re dropping, leave laundry instructions, and put a payment method on file, so nobody drops off an order without paying.
The second way skips the app entirely. A customer who works late can walk in during the day, drop off a bag, and come back to grab it later. In that case the software is your internal infrastructure: it tracks the drop-off, ties it to the customer, and lets you process it through wash-dry-fold and assign it to a locker for pickup. The order tracking built into the POS keeps every drop-off visible to your team from intake to ready-for-pickup.
Getting customers to the scheduling page is straightforward. Many subscribers already link to online pickup and delivery from their laundromat website, and the locker page lives on the same platform. You can add a link to your site or print a QR code and stick it right on the drop box or locker bank so customers scan and go.
Your Brand, Not a Marketplace
A common complaint about competing pickup, delivery, and locker offerings is that they funnel your customers onto the software company’s marketplace. The customer scans a code, lands on a generic branded page, and then has to hunt for your specific laundromat among others.
Cole was direct that this isn’t how it works with My Laundry Order. The experience is completely separate from the Wash-Dry-Fold POS brand. Customers see your store’s branded page, your logo, and your colors, and the link takes them straight to your laundromat. They aren’t sorting through other stores or comparing options. The only trace that a third-party platform is involved at all is the URL, which nobody is reading anyway.
🔑 Insider Key
When you evaluate any locker or delivery feature, ask whether the customer lands on your branded page or on the vendor’s marketplace. With Wash-Dry-Fold POS laundry lockers, the experience is 100% your brand.
Setup, Limits, and Pricing
There’s no practical limit on how many lockers you can add. Cole noted that a large store could reasonably run thirty or forty lockers, though the company may eventually put a hard cap around a hundred to keep anyone from configuring something extreme. For real-world purposes, you set up as many lockers as you physically have.
Pricing is the part owners tend to ask about, since some software companies tier features behind bronze, silver, and gold plans. There’s none of that here. The laundry locker system is included in Wash-Dry-Fold POS for all existing subscribers at no extra cost. Once the update is pushed, subscribers get instant access and can start configuring lockers right away.
Cole also pointed out where the best ideas for the feature came from: the owners themselves. Much of his time goes to tech support and talking with subscribers, and the requests and feedback from people who wanted lockers in their stores shaped what shipped. The team estimates hundreds of development hours went into the first version, and credits the new AI tools with cutting what would have been double or triple the time.
Questions owners ask
Do I need a specific brand of laundry lockers to use this feature?
No. The laundry locker system in Wash-Dry-Fold POS is built to work with any storage setup. That ranges from high-tech smart lockers with their own apps and codes to a simple drop box with a master lock on it. The software doesn’t depend on specific hardware, so you can start with whatever you already have.
Can laundry lockers work in an unattended laundromat?
Yes. The system works completely unattended. Customers can use a locked entryway, an outdoor drop box, or a bank of lockers to drop off laundry and notify you, while the main floor and your POS stay closed. You process the order once the store is open and staffed, then notify the customer and share the locker code for pickup.
Do customers have to use the online app to drop off laundry?
No. Customers can schedule and pay through the My Laundry Order app, or skip it entirely and drop off in person. When they drop off without the app, the software still tracks the order internally, ties it to the customer, and lets your team process it through wash-dry-fold and assign it to a locker for pickup.
Does the laundry locker feature cost extra?
No. Laundry lockers are included in Wash-Dry-Fold POS for all existing subscribers at no additional cost. Once the update is pushed, subscribers get instant access and can begin setting up their lockers immediately.
Will customers see a third-party marketplace when they schedule a locker?
No. The My Laundry Order experience is completely separate from the Wash-Dry-Fold POS brand. Customers land on your store’s branded page with your logo and colors, and the link takes them straight to your laundromat. The only sign a platform is involved is the URL.
Ian Gollahon
CEO & Co-Founder, Wash-Dry-Fold POS®
Ian Gollahon is co-founder of Wash-Dry-Fold POS, a laundromat point-of-sale system built from the operating experience of laundromat owners, and co-owner of Liberty Laundry in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His commentary here draws on more than a decade of operator and customer conversations about laundry lockers, unattended drop-off, pickup and delivery scheduling and wash and fold order tracking. Cole Norton, the guest in this episode, is a software developer at Wash-Dry-Fold POS.
Full episode transcript
Ian Gollahon 00:00
You feel loosened up, you feel ready to go?
Cole Norton 00:02
I guess so, yeah. How does how does the format work? Do we just do we just chit chat? Are you just gonna directly start asking questions? Like question one, like how does this work?
Ian Gollahon 00:10
I'm just I just
look at you with a perfectly straight face and I ask you the hardest questions. What was the most embarrassing moment of your life? Yeah, that's that's the format. I just I just torture you with questions. And if you answer anything wrong, you're fired instantly. That's that's the format of this podcast.
Cole Norton 00:19
Please don't. Please don't make me tell this on live TV.
Okay. Right. I'll I'll
have to get my sweat towel out.
Ian Gollahon 00:37
Yeah yeah, you just you just pour sweat the whole time. And then I'll text you after it's over if you're fired or not. I'll just text you.
Cole Norton 00:39
Just drenched in sweat.
Okay, that's a good yeah, I like that. I like that rule,
yeah. You don't wanna do it over the phone.
Ian Gollahon 00:57
Hello and welcome to the Laundromat Ownership Podcast. I'm your host, Ian Gollahon Me and my business partner Brian Henderson own three laundromats in the Tulsa, Oklahoma area. And in 2025, they did about $2.5 million in gross revenue, which makes them three of the top-performing laundromats in the US. But we're also the founders and owners of Wash Drive Fold POS, which is the original point of sale system for laundromats.
And today we actually have one of the programmers for Wash-Dry-Fold POS one of our developers, Cole, you introduce yourself a little bit?
Cole Norton 01:33
Hi everyone. Yeah, my name is Cole Morton. I've been with Watch Drive Fold POS for about a year and a half now and I've been loving every day of it. Everything's been going great. I really like seeing new features get pushed out and being able to work on those and getting to talk to all the subscribers and kinda learn what laundromat owners need and how we can help them best.
Ian Gollahon 01:58
And the reason kind of the motivation for having you on the podcast today is you were the primary developer behind this new laundry locker system, or at least you helped push it across the finish line. How long have you in the team been working on this?
Cole Norton 02:12
That's right. Yeah.
It's been a while. I know this has been a project that you know has been suggested to us for a while now and it started getting suggested pretty heavily last year and with the rise of our pickup and delivery software as well and adding improvements to that, we've really wanted to focus on more than just pickup and delivery, but other ways to increase revenue and to increase you know customers coming in and dropping off laundry.
That's a that's a huge thing for that is laundry lockers.
Ian Gollahon 02:50
Yeah, helping other laundromat owners increase their revenue as well. And it's been a really commonly requested feature for a long time. I think part of what's helped us get this across the finish line, certainly, and even given us the bandwidth to do it is the new AI tools that that you've been using and that the team has been using. So what type of lockers
For the laundry lockers. Do I need to have a specific brand if I wanna use this in my laundromat?
Cole Norton 03:24
No, and one thing that we were very intentional about when building this feature out was that, you know, some laundromats may not want, you know, smart lockers and some laundromats may not want just a drop box. So we wanted to make this as open and kind of free flowing as possible. And so really any kind of storage setup you want can work with our laundry locker features. So whether you have really smart lockers with, you know, high tech
smart apps or codes or anything like that. Or you have just, you know, a maybe a crude box with a lock on it that people can come in and just throw bags into. You know, it should work with any kind of setup you have.
Ian Gollahon 04:04
That makes sense. We've got a lot of customers with the ladder and probably fewer customers with the high-tech solution. So they're like, Yeah, I've got a box that I put a master lock on. Do I have lockers now? Yes, you do. That will work. So no, that's that's good. So well, and I guess that brings me to the next question. So when the customers are dropping off the laundry.
Cole Norton 04:10
Right, yeah.
Yeah, there it is. Yeah.
Ian Gollahon 04:30
Can they drop it in their own individual lockers or what if I just have like one big drop off like box where it just like goes into a locked office and like once you've put it in the bag and put it through the drop box, like it's it's dropped off. Like so how does that piece of it work?
Cole Norton 04:48
So yeah, in the in the software, laundromat owners will be able to decide whether they have, you know, a drop box in their a drop box set up, you know, outside or inside, like you said, in like an office area, or they have, you know, individually numbered lockers one through ten or whatever that might be. And so they can set up those different setups inside the settings of the software, and you know, the customers can either drop it off in a drop box and notify the
attendants or the workers that it's been dropped off in a drop box or they can put it in individual lockers. It's totally up to the store and how they have their setup created.
Ian Gollahon 05:27
That makes sense. So we've kind of built it to because I've heard of either model of like, hey, you know, when we give them back to you, it's an individual locker, but when you drop it off, it's in one drop site. But then other people will do both the drop off and the pickup in the individual locker. So that that makes sense. And I know another thing, and you know, for those of you who watch the podcast, you may you may be surprised at this or maybe not surprised, but
I often tell people, you know, nothing good happens in your laundromat at 2 a.m. There's just like you're not gonna get revenue. You will get drugs, you will get craziness. But let's just say I'm just a glutton for punishment. And even though I've listened to the laundromat ownership podcast and I listened to all the top laundromat owners in the US come on here and say, do not have an unattended laundromat.
I am still convinced that my laundromat should be unattended for four hours a night, and maybe there's some cities in the US where this would work. Will it work for an unattended laundromat or do you need an attendant there?
Cole Norton 06:38
No, absolutely. It will work completely unattended. And I agree, you know, you probably don't want a lot of people just walking into the store where you have your POS set up and you know, everything behind the desk. But if you can have maybe like a locked entryway or even an outdoor drop box or lockers for people to put in, customers could totally come, drop off their laundry, notify you that they've dropped it off, and then it's there for you to process whenever the store is open, and then you can notify the customers that it's
You know, been processed, it's ready to pick up. You can give them the code, whatever you want to do from that that point, yeah.
Ian Gollahon 07:14
Really thought about that, but that is an interesting idea of you know, and I have had other customers ask for this, so I guess that makes sense. But like, yeah, what if you know, what if only part of the laundromat is open, or what if you just have an entry space, or what if it's just beside the building, you know, and they can drop off anytime, but the but the actual building remains closed when it's unattended. So
Cole Norton 07:33
Totally right. Yep.
Ian Gollahon 07:37
It does kind of open up some new possibilities there. So let's let's then walk through, let's say I want to go to Cole's five star laundromat in Ardmore. I want to drop off my laundry. What does that look like for me as the laundromat customer?
Cole Norton 07:56
Mm-hmm. So there's a couple different ways that you can do that. We have our online pickup and delivery scheduling app, My Laundry Order, which is built into the software, and you know a lot a lot of our subscribers are will be familiar with that. So attached to that now is a new feature that allows customers to go on that website, My Laundry Order, and they can schedule a locker. So they'll be kind of shown a list of all the available lockers that are in the store, or if it's a Dropbox, they'll be able to choose that Dropbox.
Then they get to specify, you know, how many bags they're dropping off, the specific laundry instructions they want. They'll be able to leave a payment method so that you can collect payment from them. You don't have anyone, you know, dropping stuff off to get to get processed and not paying for it or anything. And so they can do that online, or if you know they come in during the day, maybe you know they work until midnight, so they can't pick it back up until midnight or whatever, they can come in during the day, drop it off completely.
Disregard the online ordering, it can work completely without the online scheduling app. So they could drop it off and then come back and get it later. Totally perfect.
Ian Gollahon 09:04
And then in that in that second situation, the app is really just helping you and your team manage like, okay, they left their name on the bag or whatever. And so I can see it's in the drop off. I can process it through the wash dry fold. And then I can put it in a locker for them to pick it up. So it's just providing some internal infrastructure if you don't want to use the online part. But
I think most people are gonna use the online, but then how do they how do they get to that? How do they know to go? Like is that on your laundromats website or is there a QR code? What's the deal?
Cole Norton 09:39
Sure. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, so so a lot of our subscribers right now have some pretty nice looking sites that have a link to schedule online pickup and delivery. And since it's built into that same platform, yeah, you can put a link to it on your site, or you could like print out a QR code and put it on whatever storage device you have, whether it's a Dropbox or lockers. You could have a QR code right there that they could scan and then it takes them directly to the site.
They sign up, it's a super quick and easy process and then they're off to dropping off their laundry.
Ian Gollahon 10:11
What if I want because I know one of the criticisms I'm I've heard from other offerings like this is you go to the site, right? The point of sale company is like, we do pickup and delivery, we do laundry lockers. But then when you fr from the end user's point of view, so from the laundromat customers, they go and it's like
You know, it's branded with that site stuff. And then they have to find your laundromat on the marketplace. If you had a QR code and you scanned it, would they even know that you're using Wash-Dry-Fold POS? Would there be any other laundromats available there? What does that look like for them when they actually go on the website?
Cole Norton 10:54
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that's a great question. No, with my laundry order, it's completely, completely separate from Wash-Dry-Fold POS. They wouldn't see us at all. They would see the that store's branded page. It would have their logo if they wanted it. They can customize their branded colors. It would take them directly to that laundromat's link as well. So they're not trying to fight over, you know, what store they're looking for or anything like that. It would just take them directly to that laundromat.
With all of its branding right in front of it would be very hard to miss.
Ian Gollahon 11:28
Got it. Got No, that's good. That's good. Cause a lot of people don't think to it includes pickup and delivery. That just means like it'll it'll go straight to my own branded thing, right? And it's like, well, actually, for some for some of our competitors or for some of the other point of sale companies, it's like, no, you get listed on our marketplace, and then they send you the marketplace, and then you've got to find the laundromat. And I think and obviously I've seen the demo and helped with the development, but I think the
object here is that this is all about the laundromat and the laundromat's customer and that there's no other brands involved. In fact, they won't even see my laundry order except for that's just in the URL. As far as they're concerned, they're gonna feel like they're on that laundromat. They're on that laundromat's website and they're just dropping off. And they see the logo and they see that. So the only, the only kind of
evidence that it's even our point of sale system or that you're even using a third-party platform is just in the URL, which you know no one's looking at that anyway. But is thank you. Yeah. Okay, good. Just make it sure. Is there do we have like a limit on how many lockers they can add or how does that all that work?
Cole Norton 12:34
Yep, that's totally right.
Yeah.
We don't necessarily have a have a practical limit. I mean, you know, I'm sure there's a lot of larger stores that could accommodate maybe even like thirty, forty lockers, you know. But that would have to be quite a large store and the lockers, you know, would probably have to be on the smaller side. But there's not necessarily a practical limit, but you know, we will probably put a limit on it to like a hundred or something like that,
Ian Gollahon 13:07
Right, right,
right. Yeah. So no that that makes sense. So practically there is no limit. We may eventually put a hard cap just to keep someone from doing a thousand lockers or something crazy, but for practical purpose, just however many lockers you have. And is this something that you 'cause I know when you go through like a checkout page for some of our for some of the other point of sale systems.
And not just for laundromats, I think other you know, verticals have this as well. There's usually like tiers, like there's like a bronze and a silver and a gold and so what do you have to pay extra to get this on your plan or how does that work?
Cole Norton 13:52
Mm, nope, not at all. So it's completely included in Wash-Dry Fold POS for all existing subscribers. Once the update is pushed, they'll get instant access. They can immediately start playing with it and getting things connected and setting up their lockers, and so it happens very quickly and seamlessly and they don't have to pay anything extra.
Ian Gollahon 14:10
Well, and I saw the video that you did and I think that's is that your first video that that you've done for the website? Well, you're gonna be introduced to a lot of our customers through that video, though I think a lot of our customers probably know you from tech support, right? Yeah, I mean you've
Cole Norton 14:15
That's it. Yeah. Yep, that's it.
Mm. Yep. And that's
yeah, that's that's been one of my favorite parts of working here is getting to interact with the customers and meet everyone 'cause everyone's I mean it's it's great. Everyone's great and that's the whole point of what we're doing here is trying to help laundromat owners and laundromats, you know, all across the US. So getting to talk to everyone's been awesome.
They give us, you know, a lot of great ideas and feedback on how we can improve our products. So it's you know, it works for us too. You know, that's where a lot of the good ideas for these lockers came from is from people who want this system in their store and you know, are asking what the best way to do it would be. You know, so it's it's awesome.
Ian Gollahon 15:02
I'm pumped that.
That it's finally done, it's tested, it's ready to launch. I think Tuesday is when this podcast will go out too. So it should, it should go out the same day that the actual update goes out.
Cole Norton 15:12
Should be yep. Yep. I think so.
Ian Gollahon 15:15
How long do you think how many hours do you think went into this laundry locker system total from start to finish?
Cole Norton 15:24
Start to finish, it's tough to even say. I mean
Ian Gollahon 15:26
Yeah,
development hours between you and Sean and Brian and
Cole Norton 15:29
Mhm. I mean, between all of us, you know, prob in the hundreds, you know, I mean it's it's been it's been quite some time before this idea was formulated and now it's you know, it got put on put on paper to where we decided what we wanted and what were the essentials for at least the first version going out, and then to finally doing all the testing and the programming for it and now releasing it. It's been at least hundreds between all of us, but
Ian Gollahon 15:33
Mm-hmm.
And that's with all the AI tools. I think it would have been double or triple without them. So yeah. So we're we're super pumped. I'm super pumped to see our customers use it and to get feedback on it and keep improving it. I know the sales team will be pumped as well. So
Cole Norton 15:58
Exactly.
Mm-hmm.
Easily. Yeah.
Ian Gollahon 16:13
Man, thanks again for coming on the podcast and for all your hard work on the software. Yeah. Yeah. No, anytime, man. All right. See you round.
Cole Norton 16:16
Absolutely, yeah. Thanks for having me. Mm-hmm. This has been awesome.
Thanks guys. Yep. Bye.