Neighbourhood Laundry with a Personalized Touch

Laundry shops are popping up at every corner in the Sheung Wan and Sai Ying Pun neighbourhood. What it takes to survive in such a highly competitive area is to provide extra personalised service and accommodate the needs of customers. G & S Laundry shop just opposite Island Crest building does just that. I met with the manager of G & S Laundry shop, Susanna Leung for a tete-a-tete on what makes this Localhood-affiliated laundry shop stand out. Shop History: Our laundry shop originally opened some years ago in Kennedy Town and we moved here 2 years ago due to high rent. Our niche and main line of business was actually to provide laundry services to dental clinics and beauty parlours to wash, deliver and collect uniforms. Now we also provide pick-up and delivery service to customers who spend HK$200 and above (after factoring in Localhood discount for members).

Personalised Services: Our business motto is to fulfill and accommodate the needs of our customers as best we can. To this end, we provide these specialised services: 1. For customers with babies and young children, we keep baby clothes washing liquid provided by customers in our shop and marked with the customer’s names and address. We then wash those customers’ baby clothes only with such liquid. 2. For those customers who have sensitive skin or skin allergies, we use our Tide brand non-allergic washing liquid to wash their clothes at no extra charge. 3. For those customers who prefer their own washing powder, softener or washing liquid, we keep those washing products in-store for the customers and carefully label them so that we only wash those customers’ clothes with their self-brought products. 4. For those customers who are flight staff and collect large amounts of clothes for washing, we have four large European brand washing machines to wash clothes and 5 dryers. Our aim is to return the clean clothes to customers within 3-4 hours on the same day barring any public holidays; We keep large stuffed toys for customers for up to 6 months while customers’ flats are being renovated; 5. We store customers’ clothes for up to 6 months for change of season clothing. Just tell us when you bring the clothes for washing that you would like to store them so we can seal the bags properly. 6. There’s no extra storage charge for up to 6 months and it will only take 2-3 working days to return the clothes to them. We also personally call each customer when it is nearing the 6-month time period to remind them to collect the clothes. 7. We allow customers to keep an account with us with advance payment on a rolling monthly basis. This helps customers who are too busy to bring their clothes to the shop and we can go to the building to collect the clothes for washing and return them to customers at the building.

A special bonus to LocalHooders — feel free to whatsapp the English-speaking general manager Susanna Leung (tel/whatsapp: (852) 5188 0928) or shop manager Gary Ho (tel/ whatsapp: (852) 9606 6860) if you wish to have the above personalized services or have any enquiries. Localhood-Affiliated Vendor: We joined Localhood as we wanted to encourage community spirit and neighbourly camaraderie. We found that in the recent 3 months, new customers come to us due to our association with LocalHood. We also suggest our customers to join LocalHood so they can enjoy the discount and take part in neighbourly events. We find that this community is getting friendlier and those customers in the area are our friends – some even bring us little treats and gifts as a farewell present when they leave Hong Kong. We’ve also set up a drinks fridge to let customers buy some water or soft drinks, stay for a quick chat before heading home.