Changing Laundry Habits

Despite the riots and massive impact covid has had on NYC, one immigrant just keeps giving back. Sergey Patrikeev, CEO of Liox Cleaners, decided to use the opportunity as a way to give back to the residents of NYC by offering discounted laundry service to anyone in need. With laundromats closed and people being out of work, there are many grateful New Yorkers.

Fears of covid-19 and businesses closures have already shifted the way many people are doing laundry, switching from their buildings laundry room or local laundromat to a professional laundry service. This shift has impacted parents, entrepreneurs, workers and even students, showing a wide shift in how laundry is getting done.

Liox Cleaners in NYC has seen a large increase in business during quarantine and expects it to continue.
“Despite the riots, Liox keeps helping affected New Yorkers in these times of unrest and uncertainty. We have helped over 3,000 affected New Yorkers and Visiting Medical Nurses/Doctors, and provided over $250k in discounts so far.” says Sergey.

I had a chance to interview Sergey to learn more.

Prior to Covid-19, what were common laundry habits in urban areas?
Prior the covid people in New York were totally fine to spend a few hours in the laundromat doing laundry, grabbing a coffee in a coffee shop whole waiting for it to be done.
A lot of people were ordering dry cleaning of work clothes, evening out clothes etc.

How and why are those habits shifting?
Today people are alot more hesitant to go into the laundromat, but many still do.
Very few people order dry cleaning, 7 times less than before. Mostly people work from home or they don't go out yet.
More and more people are shifting their laundry ordering habits to on demand model. Order pickup and delivery only.

What might lead to a permanent change in laundry habits?
With increasing minimum wage and rising rent, laundromats can no longer be as profitable as they were before. Environmental laws for what type of chemicals can be used had already shaken down dry cleaning industry last year in NY.
With more laundromats and cleaners closing down, we will see that transition accelerate drastically.