Tide has unveiled a new concept for on-demand dry cleaning and plans to open 2,000 retail outlets in the coming years.
Thanks to the mass distribution of washing machines and laundries, the laundry procedure has ceased to be a torment today. But there are always ways to improve. And the experience of the Tide Cleaners brand shows that simplifications are possible even where everything seems familiar and familiar. And the washing procedure can be reduced, in fact, to launching an application on a smartphone.
The Tide Cleaners laundry and dry cleaners, opening today in all US cities, are designed to empower people to spend more time on their personal lives and less on laundry, the brand says. After all, the value of time is constantly increasing, and the demand for services designed to make everyday life more efficient continues to grow, while many household chores still take a lot of energy. According to the US Department of Labor, the average American consumer spends more than an hour a day—up to 375 hours a year—sorting, washing, drying, and folding laundry.
To date, Tide Cleaners provides several types of services. First of all, these are special collection points where people can leave clothes for washing, and then pick them up clean. After the user left the clothes, he reports this in a special application. It also comes with a notification that you can take the result. Collection points are special metal boxes that Tide Cleaners installs everywhere - from the entrances of multi-storey buildings to offices and shops. So the user has the opportunity to combine, for example, shopping with laundry. Tide says more than 350 new collection points open every month.
Another option is the "classic" laundries and dry cleaners, open 24 hours a day and providing a wide range of services. A client can come here for a variety of issues, from environmentally friendly cleaning to alteration and conservation of wedding dresses. Today there are already more than 125 such points in 22 states and their number is constantly increasing.
And finally, outbound services provided on student campuses. Students donate clothes to service trucks parked outside the dorms. They receive notification of the arrival of the truck in advance on their smartphone. Using the service means buying a monthly subscription and getting a special bag for clothes. This service is already provided in the 20 largest universities in the country.
It all started about ten years ago, when Procter & Gamble, which owns the Tide brand, was just starting to work in the direction of laundries. Today, the brand continues to develop its out-of-home laundry expertise and the Tide Cleaners business is a one-stop service. The proposed approach and the big name of Tide (and this brand is considered the most respected in the US when it comes to laundry) are doing their job, Tide Cleaners services are becoming more and more popular.
All this is an example of how you can find a non-standard approach in a case in which, at first glance, nothing new can be invented. After all, laundry services have been used by millions of families in the United States for decades. Now, thanks to Tide Cleaners business models, the laundry process is simplified to a minimum. Today, a washing machine is a mandatory attribute of many apartments. But new approaches may lead people to abandon the idea of laundry at home altogether in the future.
