Cleaning, laundry platforms thrive as spring arrives

[Graphics by Song Ji-yoon and Lee Eun-joo]

Demand for household services including cleaning and laundry is increasing sharply as spring cleaning season arrives. As time becomes more valuable than money, and as the proliferation of related platforms enhances service accessibility, singles as well as families are actively using these services.

According to industry sources on Monday, the size of the Korean household service market was about 12 trillion won ($8.9 billion) in 2023, growing over 20 percent compared to 2021. Shinhan Card Co.’s big data analysis showed that among customers making payments to household labor platforms from January to March 2023, families with adult and teenage children accounted for 34 percent, which is nearly double the figure of 19 percent in 2019.

Korea’s largest freelancer intermediary platform kmong Inc. actively expanded its business into lifestyle service areas such as air conditioner cleaning to meet this customer demand.

Kmong launched its first foray into the cleaning service by recruiting verified home care experts for pest control services and introduced its Pest Phobia solution service in November 2023. The company has since expanded its service areas to include air conditioner, washing machine, mattress, and move-in cleaning services.

The lifestyle service sector providing cleaning-related services from this company saw a significant increase in reservations in March 2024 to exceed 1,000 reservations or a 12.7-fold increase compared to the previous month.

There is a particularly noticeable increase in demand for laundry services for transitional season indoor furniture, clothing, and mattresses. Lifegoeson reported that usage of its contactless laundry service, LaundryGo, increased by 33 percent in March 2024 from the previous month. It recorded the highest number of orders in a day on March 24th, when over 7,500 households used the LaundryGo laundry service.

The usage of laundry services was high overall, but there was a noticeable 68 percent increase in the use of down jacket laundry services in March 2024 compared to the previous month.

“As the weather warms up, many customers are organizing their winter clothes and welcoming spring,” an official from Lifegoeson said.

LaundryGo, which provides specialized laundry services such as dry cleaning, household laundry, bedding, shoes, premium laundry, and repairs, delivers laundered and dried laundry back to the customer’s doorstep by the next day if laundry pickup is requested by 10 p.m.

Cleaning Laboratory, a home cleaning service platform operated by Lifelab Corp., expanded its service areas to Sejong and Changwon in February 2024 as the cleaning platform saw its number of users increase. Founded in 2017, the company started with a service connecting 1,500 cleaning managers and households, but the number of managers who are currently active has increased to 140,000. The company’s revenue also grew by more than 30 percent in 2023 compared to the previous year.

There are also startups handling the various types of waste generated after cleaning. Bbegi, a waste platform that helps customers report waste disposal with ease using a smartphone application, allows users to take a photo of the items to be disposed of, pay the collection fee, and easily dispose of the waste. It provides a wide range of disposal services, including large waste disposal, used item purchase, clothing and book donations, and construction site waste disposal. Bbegi has surpassed 1 million cumulative users since it launched the service in 2018.