Esoteric Eric
Journeyman
Rather than heading to the home appliances store for a better washing machine, you could proceed to the Google Play Store instead. The country's first laundry app, Wassup Laundry, has just hit the Android aisles, and it hopes to give your front loader a solid drubbing. Launched by the Laundry Project, a startup headquartered in Chennai, the app takes the dirty work out of washing.
Once downloaded, the app rolls out a catalogue. Specify the type of service you want (dry cleaning or ordinary wash; express or regular), then opt for fringe services like stain-removal, clothes polishing, darning and so on. Specify the time and place you'd like your dirty laundry collected and Pressto (that's another startup story), a delivery boy comes along, picks up your pile and returns them laundered in a neat package in five days (for a `norush' booking). You can even throw in your soiled suede shoes and leather bag for a fix-up.
There's a big churn in the laundry business, and we're not talking 1800 rpm spin tubs. Start-ups are working hard to win Indians over to the idea of sending their daily wear, not just their premium wear, to the cleaners. And they're doing this by simplifying the oldest chore in the books.
R Balachandar, a 34-year-old entrepreneur who launched Laundry Project in 2011, rattles off his bucket list of innovations: gift vouchers, the laundry app, a `whiteness guarantee for a year', a home delivery system that works even when the customer is away , dhobipartnership programmes, ITI courses in laundry training -all aligned to grow his Rs 3.5 crore fabric cleaning business to Rs 8 crore next year.
Bala knows, along with the rest of them, that the future of the organized laundry and dry cleaning industry in India is dazzlingly bright at around Rs 6,000 crore, extrapolating estimates from a 2008 KPMG report.
In fact, the last couple of years have seen the brisk expansion of multi-crore locals like Jyothi Laboratories and globetrotters like Spanish brand Pressto and French company 5 a Sec. Diminishing supply of domestic help, working couples, working singles, expensive clothes, and polluted groundwater -all apparently combine to make a strong case for the modern launderer.
Over the last decade, this has led to the rise of the suds-seized start-up with a lineup of customer-friendly services that offer to sew missing buttons and home-deliver the goods (perhaps the big gest game-changer). In addition, SMS alerts, prepaid monthly packages, fabric specific care, treated water, ancillary services like fabric polishing, darning and minor fixes -are all in the brochure.
The new and improved laundry is also turning out to be a comparatively cheap er one. At Bhubaneshwar-based Dhobi waale for instance, a T-shirt costs Rs 10 to launder; Mumbai's Chamak Direct charges Rs 390 for a 3-kg lot; and Wassup offers a Rs 1,29940-garment package. By comparison, old-schoolers could take anything between Rs 30 to 50 a shirt.
Chamak Direct, which was launched in 2009 by venture capitalist Hari Nair, took its inspiration from the phone booth. Titled Village Laundry Service, it set up 25 kiosks in Bangalore, each equipped with a washing machine and drier. But in Mumbai, real estate prices forced them to ditch the kiosk system and settle for a single processing unit in Parel, a collection hub in Malad and a call-centre. They changed names (to Chamak), hired deliverymen and put the word out. "We started making Rs 50,000 a month four years ago and now we make over Rs 11 lakh a month," says Sushil Mungekar, managing director and CEO of Chamak Direct, hinting that a mobile app is on the way .
Initially, he assumed only bachelors in Mumbai who could not afford maids would form their core customer-base, like in Bangalore. However, in Mumbai, "many people are ready to pay a premium for convenience," he says, adding that even working couples with washing machines and maids opted for the service."They want their office wear, especially branded shirts to be treated with care," says Mungekar, cradling a crisply-ironed Van Heusen shirt, with stiff cardboard tabs in the collar.
While several businesses currently rely on customer care officers to coordinate deliveries and payment and are working on integrated payment gateways to facilitate e-commerce, some like Dhobiwaale already offer the option on their website. "Ours is an online model currently, with phone apps planned," says 30-year-old Ajaya Behera, who runs Dhobiwaale with tech friends Srijeet Mishra and Animesh Ekka. Customers can pay via PayPal, credit and debit cards and even track their orders online.
Mumbai's The Shoe Laundry, which has gone from being the crazy idea of a college kid named Sandeep Gajakas to a full-fledged, on-call shoe-revamping business with franchises in Bhutan and Kenya, already has an app. Launched two years ago, ShoeVival invites customers to stipulate the number and type of shoes to be repaired. The order is then confirmed on the phone, preliminary information about the shoes, their problems and scope of work is discussed, and a pick-up is scheduled. While washing costs Rs 200 to Rs 250 per pair, repairs cost extra depending on the extent of damage. "Customers," Gajakas says, "feel encouraged to buy more expensive shoes because they know we're around to take care of them."
While convenience is the big draw here, entrepreneurs like Wassup's Bala believe we're approaching a time when laundering will be regarded as an experience rather than a service. Of the two cities he has set up shop (24 retail outlets in all), it's younger Bangalore that seems to have more readily bought the pitch, sending in their inners as well for a rubdown, while value-conscious Chennai still balks at the prospect. But he has loyal customers like Prem Parathasarathy , 42. "When we washed clothes in the machine, they'd start looking drab, but they now have a sheen and are in better condition. It could be because of the RO water they use," says the IT professional from T Nagar, Chennai, who has been the laundry's customer for 2 years, running up monthly bills of Rs 5,000 to 8,000.
"An attitudinal shift is underway," agrees Ullas Kamath, Joint MD, Jyothi Laboratories Ltd, whose subsidiary , Jyothi Fabricare Services Ltd (JFSL) has subsumed several established brands including Snoways, Dhulai and Busy Easy. He says earlier, people regarded laundries to be problem-solvers that would resolve stains and restore delicate clothes too good for the washing machine; they now consider them outfits that liberate them from the drudgery of washing (even if by machine) and ironing (even if by an istri-wallah).
The tide may have turned, but at the time of setting up, these entrepreneurs had a hard time getting other professionals on board. "It was not easy to recruit MBA professionals," says Behera. Bala too had virtually no takers at campus placements. His relatives scoffed at his departure from the family leather business to become a `dhobi', as they saw it, and his mother resigned herself to seeing him unmarried.
Many of these brands are now spilling over to multiple cities. Dhobiwaale, which set up shop last year and counts 1,500 clients, aims to extend its services soon to other cities in Orissa like Cuttack, Rourkela and Angul. Wassup is going to NCR, Pune and Hyderabad. JFSL, a Rs 75 crore company with 130 stores across the country, is aiming at Rs 500 crore in five years.
Ultimately, the business shows the men running it how to think like women."Even a small stain bothers them no end," says Behera of Dhobiwaale. This is perhaps why , at Chamak Direct some women use their husbands as guinea pigs. "Some women who are testing our service tend to send the husband's clothes first," says an amused Mungekar.
(Source)
I never knew this would become so convenient, but only if they promise to deliver before the said deadline.
