The Bengaluru-based doorstep laundry provider
LaundryAnna announces the opening of its 1st physical store as a part of its expansion strategy. After operating as exclusive online laundry service for almost two years, LaundryAnna had been growing at a rapid pace and had ended the FY 16-17 on a profitable note.
BUSINESS ACHIEVEMENTSLaundryAnna started its business back in 2015 as an online laundry service with self-owned processing unit with a capacity of processing 300 garments per day, but as it evolved, LaundryAnna has also grown in the size as now it processes above 3000 garments per day. LaundryAnna also launched its app for online bookings and pick-up which further increased its business reach. By exclusive partnerships, LaundryAnna has achieved good traction with residential societies and college hostels like Symbiosis, Oxford, IIITB and serenity group which are among the many hostels within its wings. This not only helped it increase the sales but also in cutting down logistics and processing costs by a substantial margin. LaundryAnna also raised Rs 1 crore in seed funding from a group of angel investors mainly to expand the network and processing capacity.
PLANS for PIVOTING HYBRID MODELBy venturing into offline space, LaundryAnna intends to add a good number of offline users to increase their customer base and directly compete with well-established and decades old businesses. Some of these firms are well-organized dry-cleaners, but others still follow the same concepts of old Dhobis.
According to Prateek Rana, LaundryAnna’s founder “With the sudden surge in the number of launches and shutdown in this space in few months, it is evident that there is no clear winner with a perfect business model to execute. We realized that most of the providers are fighting over a small pie of online users. While we continue to focus on that, we also wanted to offer the experience of a professional service to the other segment, and hence we decided to start retail stores. We would typically be adding 4-5 stores this year, which will also act as the hub for that area for doorstep service."
The primary focus of LaundryAnna has always been consumer satisfaction, and approximately 80% of orders here are from repeat customers, and with a network of retail outlets, they will be able to provide their services to more customers as not all users can/want to use online services.
Prateek also says that “Coming from a hospitality background, I am very particular about the experience aspect and at our store's customers will get to connect with the brand. We do not expect a waiting time of more than 90 sec to drop or pick up the garments. Customers can also sign up and even pay online using our kiosks at the store. We also plan to live stream our operations at processing units at all our stores which will reassure the users of our commitment to quality and transparency.”
