Do you want to get your laundry done without breaking a sweat but are not sure where to start? This article shares insights about how to get laundry done in 2022.

What is laundry?

By simple definition, we will refer to laundry as clothes and linen that needs to be washed or that have been washed. The term itself is often used to refer to a room where the process of washing clothes actually takes place.

Whereas in developed societies, laundry often refers to washing with a machine, in under developed societies, the phrases “washing clothes, dobby/dobbi” are often used to mean laundry.

There are different types/forms of doing laundry, i.e;

• Hand wash
• Machine wash
• Dry cleaning
• Steaming and pressing

The history of doing laundry

People have been doing laundry since graduating from wearing leaves to sacks, and in Africa barkcloth and eventually clothes. That’s why hand washing is historically as old as the invention of clothes themselves.

According to https://www.thoughtco.com/, “early washing machines were invented back in the 1850s” and over the course of the 20th and 21st centuries, the technology for washing clothes and laundry machines has evolved from crude manual labor to the high tech that we have come to know of today.

For most cultures, dating as far back as ancient cultures go, “people cleaned their clothes by pounding them on rocks or rubbing them with abrasive sands and washing the dirt away in streams or rivers” and any other nearby water bodies.

According to https://www.electroluxgroup.com/, “James King in 1851 who created the first washing machine to use a drum, Hamilton Smith in 1858 patented a rotary version, and in 1868 Thomas Bradford, a British inventor, created a commercially successful machine that resembles the modern device. William Blackstone of Indiana created one as a birthday present for his wife in 1874 and then put it on the market.”

As society continued to evolve, the Romans went on to invent a crude soap that contained ash and fat from sacrificed animals although the most common way of “washing clothes was to boil them in a large pot or cauldron, then lay them on a flat board, and beat them with a paddle called a dolly”.

This would years later be preceded with the making of “chemical laundry detergent” with the first of its kind being “manufactured in 1916; first in Germany due to lack of soap during WWI”.

As ingenious and effective as all those inventions may have been, it was those that came in the post-World War II discoveries that left the biggest mark with the combination of electricity and running water that were to be the game changer. To this day, the domestic washing machine remains one of the greatest inventions that radically changed the lives of many families.

The laundry Industry today

The global laundry industry consists of the sales of dry-cleaning and laundry services and related goods by entities. According to the business research company (https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/), the global dry-cleaning and laundry services market was expected to fall “from $106.2 billion in 2019 to $104 billion in 2020 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of -2.1%” as a result of the pandemic (Covid-19) that cause an economic slowdown across countries.

However, the same source builds on our optimism with a prediction that the same market “is expected to recover and grow at a CAGR of 5% from 2021 and reach $118.3 billion in 2023.”

It goes without saying that the Asian Pacific is the largest region in the global dry-cleaning and laundry services market, with a share of 34% of the global market whereas North America comes at 33% according to 2019 data. Unfortunately, Africa was the smallest region in the global dry-cleaning and laundry services market but our research shows that the industry is experiencing a fair continuous growth. 

The growth in technology, bringing to life mobile apps are serving to cover gaps in the industry, catering to the growing demand by providing convenient and easy access to on demand laundry services. Such apps are allowing customers to place dry cleaning or laundry service orders remotely, with service providers providing pick up and delivery services. The mobile apps allow customers to schedule their pickups and deliveries as well as enable them to make their payments online (digitally). 

The apps also allow customers to receive notifications about the pickup, well calculated costs and payment schedules plus deliveries among other things. Apps Gata Hub, Starchup and Rinse among others are some of the mobile apps being used for on-demand laundry services.

However, most of these apps are owned by companies that actually provide these laundry services. And that’s where, HobyClean has come in to bridge that gap especially for small, medium or otherwise laundry service providers that don’t have the resources to invest in their own mobile apps. Look at www.hobyclean.com as the AirB&B or Booking.com of the laundry industry.

So what is HobyClean?

HobyClean is a digital laundry marketplace for laundromats, linking service providers and customers with a seamless technology that allows the placing of laundry orders. The application has been built with four versions, i.e.

• The customer app
• The vendor app
• The riders/drivers app
• The web-based platform

The Customer version is what customers use to place their laundry service orders, choosing from service options like; dry cleaning & laundry (machine wash), wash and fold (dobby) as well as monthly subscription packages/baskets.

The monthly subscription baskets allow customers, whether individuals, families or businesses like hotels, hospitals, spas, guest houses etc. to choose a package of preference, make payment and schedule pickups and deliveries on a weekly basis especially for families and individuals. These pickups and deliveries can be daily for businesses based on their laundry demands.

The Vendor version of the app is what dry cleaners and laundry service providers then use at the business end to receive and accept customer orders. Service providers have the ability to decline an order, which can then be rerouted to another service provider.

Once an order is accepted, the service provider then gets access to the order details of the customer such as customer name, type of laundry order, qualities of laundry and customer pickup and desired delivery addresses.

With the system management itself, service providers have access to a catalog of their transaction history (orders) by day, week, month and beyond.

As a start, the app allows customers to make cash payments especially in countries where digital payments are still just growing. Across East Africa, customers will be able to pay using their mobile money or VISA card.

The Riders version of the app; enables service providers (laundromats) to pickup and deliver, by registering their riders/drivers to make these pickups and deliveries.

NB: Unlike in the first version of the app, business/laundry service providers in the new version of the app (2022 March app release) at the back of their system management can register their different service branches.

And here is the biggest catch/scoop of it all, registration for service providers is completely free of charge. A business owner/manager simply has to download the HobyClean vendor app to register their business. As part of due diligence and transparency, a business owner is required to submit a copy of the Nation ID or Driver’s license or a passport as well as a trading license. Just remember, taking your business digital, whether small, medium or big, in this day and age is a nobrainner.