Startups

How this Kolkata-based brand Laundry King is modernizing the traditional way of doing Laundry & aiming at revolutionizing a largely unorganized industry

• ByStartupStory     |    June 3, 2022

“The thing with startups is, it’s easy to start a spark but extremely challenging to continue with & keep the flames burning. However, if you are sure that you’re providing the top-notch quality and your customer agrees with it, then someday you will stand out of the crowd. It takes time, stick around and keep going!” said Gaurav Agarwal, Co-Founder, Laundry King® in an interesting and detailed interview with Startup Story.

Speaking with Startup Story, Gaurav shared a snippet of his journey and how he started with his brand Laundry King®. Gaurav was determined that he wanted to enter and expand the family business with over 60 years of legacy in the laundry business in Kolkata, into the retail segment.

Even before he started his MBA program, Gaurav had his eyes for the laundry industry. During his exchange program in Germany, he made sure to visit the Girbau factory, one of the world’s leading laundry machine manufacturer in Spain, to learn more about the latest advancements in the laundry industry. In the last trimester of his MBA program at IIM Udaipur, he proactively worked on his idea from setting up the website to working on its logo and gave shape to the brand, Laundry King.

Meanwhile, Gaurav’s father and his elder brother were working on the plant setup for the brand back home, so that he could get it up and running when he was done with his masters. In March 2019, Laundry King started B2B operations and bagged contracts from hotels and caterers. The next few months were a rigorous period of brainstorming and strategizing everything right from the procedure, designs, packaging, location, manpower among others. They handpicked the industry best practices and combined it with their own experiences, to build a brand that would stand out. Finally, in August 2019, they were ready to venture into the retail segment.

“Laundry is a largely unorganized sector and there is no standardization in terms of quality and service, whatsoever. Most local laundry businesses still use primitive and damaging petrol-wash in the guise of dry cleaning, the slightly better ones use Perc-based cleaning which is still far from good. Moreover, there are extreme delays in delivery time as well,” said Gaurav. With an aim to solve the prevailing issues around laundry and to expand from B2B to B2C, Laundry King was co-founded in 2019.

The secret behind Laundry King’s steep growth curve

Laundry King, a unit of Abco Services, brings in unparalleled experience of more than 5 decades in the laundry industry. Having processed more than 60 million garments till date, it is building on this experience to bring unmatched service quality to the table.

Laundry King started with 2 retail outlets in premium residential areas of the city. Soon Covid-19 hit their growth severely, but it managed to come out stronger from the crisis and grew to 9 company operated retail stores across Kolkata, with plans of many more in the pipeline. Their customer base has grown manifold with 12000+ customers served already.

The secret recipe, you ask? Highly sophisticated new-gen machinery, coupled with the highest-grade premium chemicals from Johnson Diversey, a highly trained team and free doorstep pickup and delivery with a focus on the shortest possible turnaround timeline. To add to these, they only use RO water in their processing to increase the life of the garments. They’re also adding more and more electric vehicles to their fleet to contribute to a greener environment. Making it easier for their customers to place an order, they have launched a dedicated app.

All this is making them stand out from their competitors, with an aim to disrupt the market, by raising the quality standards of the industry while still maintaining competitive rates, to make such service quality available to the masses.

Service Portfolio

In the B2B segment, Laundry King caters to some of the major hospitality brands in Kolkata, currently catering to 10+ hotels with biggies like Radisson and Holiday Inn in the kitty. They also cater to various caterers and banquets such as Munna Maharaj Caterers.

In the B2C segment, they offer a complete range of laundry and dry-cleaning solutions ranging from ornamental dry cleaning for your occasion wear, to every upholstery needs in your living area from curtains, carpets and sofa deep cleaning to even professional mattress cleaning. Leaving no stones unturned to meet the needs of their customers, they even offer express service with same-day and next day delivery options. Adding on to their environment-friendly focus, they make use of Hydrocarbon dry-cleaning technology, which is safer for both the skin and the environment.

Team behind the success of Laundry King

Laundry King has a dynamic, passionate and highly experienced team. Mr. Sushil Agarwal, possessing over 40+ years of experience and Mr. Sourav Agarwal, with over a decade of experience, form the backbone of the company. They have a diverse team of 50+ employees working at the processing unit and at various outlets, where each one brings in a different and fresh skill set.

Challenges faced so far

Laundry being a very capital and labor-intensive industry, it was challenging to bring together all the pieces of the puzzle at the inception stage. Bringing in the right set of skilled manpower, training and retaining them has been one of the biggest challenges in itself.

The lockdown period during Covid-19 was a huge blow to the company’s finances owing to the high fixed costs associated with this capital-intensive industry. But they were the first ones to spring back to action right when the lockdown was lifted while other players were still skeptical.

Market Expansion and Funding

The company is looking to expand its retail presence across Kolkata. To make their business model scalable and replicate their success to other cities, they’re focusing and investing towards building SOPs. They have recently bagged a contract with IIT (ISM) Dhanbad to set up a laundry infrastructure at their premises, to cater to the laundry requirements of the 12,000 residents there.

To maintain strict quality control and customer experience, they have avoided giving franchisees, keeping all their stores company-owned and operated.

When asked about the funding, Gaurav replied, Laundry King is a completely bootstrapped and family owned brand.

 

How customer satisfaction is maintained at the core of their policies since Day 1

The feedback for Laundry King has been great until now, with a very low attrition rate and consistently the highest ratings in the city ever since they started.

When asked about customer feedback, Gaurav said, “Customers love our packaging and service quality, like there has been a customer who tried our service and loved it to the extent that he went on to place an order with us for 231 pieces in a single order.”

“Our team has been trained to put our customer’s needs before anything, so they go lengths to meet them. There have been times when our team picked up, processed and delivered a customer’s urgent order, all within a matter of 6 hours, and another incident where they delivered an order at 11:30 pm because the customer had an early flight to catch the next morning. To keep our customers happy, we go so far as to rewash the garments they’re not satisfied with, without any additional charge.”

“At the end of the day, our biggest asset is not our expensive plant and machinery, but a growing base of happy and regular customers” added Gaurav.

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