Day in day out, unemployment in Kenya remains a key challenge especially among the youth in Kenya and the large east Africa region.
According to the latest labour data by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics released last year in September, at least 1.7 million Kenyans had lost their jobs during the pandemic between April and June. This raised the unemployment rate among the qualified working population to 10.4% from 5.2% as of March the same year.
With this in mind, LG East Africa has kicked off a campaign to empower 1,000 entrepreneurs eyeing the fast-growing on-demand laundry market in the next five years. This is to create sustainable opportunities that will create jobs in the long term.
Through a new partnership with appliances distributors Hotpoint, LG seeks to create jobs for more Kenyans in future while offering laundry solutions to an increasingly affluent middle-income market with limited time to do laundry but with a desire to have their laundry done professionally and at an affordable rate.
Leverage Innovation
“LG’s commitment is to ensure that our customers live the better life that they deserve. Therefore, our role in this partnership is to offer the latest state of the art LG washing machines with top technology and innovative features to deliver clean, gentle clothing care. Each washing machine incorporates effective hygiene technology”. Said LG Electronics Home Appliances product manager Eden Seo.
The commercial dryer, for instance, uses high-temperature air to sanitize clothes of germs and bacteria.
LG’s laundromat innovation also comes with a digital app that allows customers to remotely monitor progress with their laundry. The shop operators can also manage their business off-site in real-time and promptly track and resolve technical issues. This not only offers convenience for them but also makes their home life stress free.
With less than 20 per cent of Kenyan homes owning a washing machine or dryer, commercial laundromats, popularly known as dry cleaners are set to offer investors and clients a smarter, safer way of doing laundry while serving both single individuals and working couples with families.
Training
Through Hotpoint, monthly immersion workshops will be carried out to train and advise the entrepreneurs on the best locations to set up the laundromats and how to leverage the high-level LG washing machines to attain maximum value. Additionally, the entrepreneurs will be trained on using the right detergents courtesy of Soilex Pro solve which offers cleaning solutions.
In his view, Hotpoint Appliances Ltd B2B Regional Head, Ravi Kanani said that “As distributors working closely with LG Electronics, we shall offer technical support in terms of equipment installation and servicing, and training the entrepreneurs on the right detergents to use”.
Research from Hotpoint shows that it takes approximately Ksh 1.5 million to Ksh 2 million to establish a complete laundromat. This amount is inclusive of costs of about 2-3 sets of washing and dryer machines.
The distributor has from experience proved that Laundromats are a viable and profitable business in Kenya having opened and operated one in Buruburu about 2 years ago and a smart laundry one in Thika Road Mall (TRM) last year. The latter one is a smart laundry store unveiled last year in partnership with LG under its commercial machine reference stores concept.
The concept involved partnering with small laundry businesses to roll out smart laundry stores in strategic locations across the country. The ripple effects are creating job opportunities for Kenyans to operate and run smart laundromats.