In fewer than five years, pre-moistened towelettes have gone from being an interesting cleaning gimmick to a reliable mainstay for many customers. Not only are distributors making the most of the current pre-moistened towelette market, they are finding hundreds of new arenas that can benefit from towelettes. Construction workers, janitors, police officers and even musicians have found great uses for this jack-of-all-trades product, and that deserves the attention of distributors.

Dan Martin of Janitor Supply Co., Springfield, Ohio, says that manufacturers are producing new kinds of pre-moistened towelettes as fast as distributors can sell them. “It seems like in the last year or two, everyone and their brother has come out with a new kind of pre-moistened towelette,” says Martin. “We’ve started selling them primarily to health care facilities and industrial companies, but there are definitely many other customers.”

Small, But Tough
Janitor Supply Co. is having the most success with its industrial customers. Whether it’s construction work, a gas station or a furnace installation, pre-moistened towelettes provide workers with quick, convenient cleaning. “There has been more of a demand with our industrial customers, because they just don’t have time to get out a rag and spray bottle every time they need to wipe something down,” says Martin. “One of our customers does furnace installation for the city. After he finishes a job, he just uses a pre-moistened towelette to clean up the job and take away any unsightly grease marks or fingerprints.”

Similarly, Robert Mandala, president of Alco-Chem Inc., Akron, Ohio, originally started selling pre-moistened towelettes to mechanics who praised the way they cleaned difficult spots on a car. “I first started carrying them about four years ago,” he says. “Goodyear Tire was requesting them for their workstations, and they’ve kept buying from us ever since. Other cleaning methods can be really cumbersome, and the mechanics need to make the best use of their space and energy.”

Oakes Door Service, another of Janitor Supply Co.’s customers, equips all employees with pre-moistened towelette hand-wipes and disinfectant wipes to use after each job. “The obvious thing is that our workers need to clean their hands when they’re finished,” says Scott Wells, manager for the company. “They need to write invoices and talk to customers. Then we clean off the garage doors and make them presentable.”

Graffiti Removal
Pre-moistened towelettes have recently been manufactured for specific jobs, such as graffiti removal. In Lubbock, Texas, police officers routinely carry powerful disinfectant wipes to get rid minor incidents of vandalism. “Our company actually sells pre-moistened towelettes directly to the city,” says Robert Hughes, president of City Janitor Supply in Lubbock. “They supply them to the police officers and other city workers so that they can get rid of graffiti easily. For example, if a police officer notices graffiti on a stop sign, he can just pull over and use the towelette to wipe it off. Before, they usually had to remove the entire stop sign and get it specially cleaned.”

For the past year-and-a-half, Hughes has sold pre-moistened towelettes for graffiti removal. He says that educational facilities often buy from him because students draw on their lockers or on the walls, but he cautions distributors to be informed about the potency of the towelettes they sell.

“Some of the pre-moistened towelettes used for graffiti-removal have very harsh chemicals,” he says. “They’re designed to remove ink and paint, and if customers use them improperly, they can take the paint right off a locker.”

Time to Train
Hughes emphasizes the need for distributors to train customers in proper use and to educate them about what pre-moistened towelettes are best for what surfaces. “You’ve got to demonstrate how to use all of them, but especially the graffiti removers.”

Martin agrees. He has seen the same thing with his Springfield, Ohio, customers. For heavy-duty, industrial jobs, Janitor Equipment Co. often sells a powerful brand of pre-moistened towelettes that use an orange-peel extract. The product is all-natural, but has a high pH level of between 11 and 13. According to Martin, the biggest enemy for many industrial jobs is grease. “Workers need a product that they don’t need to think about, and that’s powerful enough to cut through grease. A light cleaner, or weak pre-moistened towelette isn’t going to cut it, so a wipe that has a powerful citrus cleaner or a high pH is what’s going to work.” Although it’s great for tough jobs, distributors need to educate their customers on how to use these products correctly.

Oftentimes, customers will invest in more than one type of pre-moistened towelette. Hughes says that educational facilities have proved to be invaluable partners because they buy not only graffiti removers, but also heavy-duty wipes for janitorial cleaning and hand sanitizers for school nurses. “The nurses go through a lot of pre-moistened towelettes,” he says. “It’s good to talk with them about which plan will fit their needs best.”

Make Customers Shine
In addition to industrial cleaning, graffiti-removal, and hand sanitation, pre-moistened towelettes are often used as polishers for wood and metal. Musicians have been known to clean their brass instruments with sanitary wipes, but for jan/san distributors, a more likely customer is a restaurant or movie theater. “We sell to a lot of bars in restaurants down here in Texas because they use so many brass fixtures in their decoration,” says Hughes. “They don’t have to get a separate canister of polishing cream, so that makes it a lot more convenient. Also, wood is common in eating establishments, and a few manufacturers have started producing pre-moistened towelettes that are designed specifically for polishing wood.”

Movie theaters are also known to use pre-moistened towelettes to quickly clean between showings and for spot maintenance around the theater. Theater managers arm employees with pre-moistened towelettes so that the theater’s image is kept intact. In this way, attention is not drawn to the cleaning process.

Whatever the job, and whoever the customer is, pre-moistened towelettes are proving to be a valuable product with a lot of potential. If distributors take the time to talk to customers, they can help customers choose which type and brand are the best fit.




POSTED ON: 3/1/2002