Four years after launching in Melbourne, The Sneaker Laundry is about to open its first location in Sydney after raising more than $900,000 on equity crowdfunding platform Birchal earlier this year. “Our goal by the end of next year is to have a store in every [major] city in Australia,” Eugene Cheng, The Sneaker Laundry’s director, told Inside Retail. A self-confessed sneakerhead, Cheng started The Sneaker Laundry in 2017 after being unable to find a place to restore his own shoes a
hoes and realising there was a gap in the market for sneaker cleaning.
Estimated to be worth US$79 billion globally, the sneaker industry is big business. And with some limited-edition styles costing as much as a small car, it’s not surprising there are people willing to go the extra mile to keep their kicks in pristine condition.
“We’ve done over 25,000 shoes in Australia since we launched,” Cheng said.
How it works
Customers can either drop off their shoes or mail them to The Sneaker Laundry, where a team of specially-trained staff will perform a range of cleaning and restoration services, from debris removal and deodorising to waterproofing and repainting.
The price of a basic cleaning is $35. A full restoration costs $150. That’s not a bad deal, considering the fact that some of the shoes The Sneaker Laundry cleans are worth more than $10,000.
“The Dior Jordan 1s, we get a fair few of them through. They’re pretty expensive. We also see Chanel x Pharrell Human Races, and they go for a fair bit as well,” Cheng said. “Sample Jordan 1s tend to rack up the bills too because there are some that are very rare.”
In addition to in-person cleaning and restoration, The Sneaker Laundry also sells home-cleaning kits and sneaker storage solutions online. Storage boxes with sound-activated LED lighting go for $50, and premium acrylic display boxes are $60.
“There’s something about being able to stack [your sneakers] floor to ceiling and have them very uniformly spaced apart that is very appealing,” Cheng said.
“The old sneaker collectors would put [their shoes] in boxes that you couldn’t see [through] – like 10 Nike boxes stacked up. And if you wanted to take a shoe out, you had to move them all around.”
From Melbourne to Beirut
While Cheng is just beginning to expand The Sneaker Laundry in Australia, he has already taken the concept overseas. He opened his first international store in Lebanon last November, and opened a second store recently in Saudi Arabia.
Both stores are run under a franchise agreement with a local operator who met Cheng after sending him a direct message on Instagram.
“A lot of people message us on Instagram saying, ‘I want to take your brand to wherever’. The difference with this guy was that he actually knew what he was doing,” Cheng said.
Despite the challenges of starting a business in Lebanon, Cheng said the store was “a breeze” to put together.
“We fit out the shop and trained the new staff in two weeks,” he said. “I flew [to Lebanon] with 80kg of luggage, enough to get the store up and running.”
That experience has given him the confidence to take The Sneaker Laundry to other international markets outside of the Middle East.
“It was a really good training ground for our business to figure out how to expand internationally,” he said. “After I opened a shop in Lebanon, I realised I could open a shop anywhere.”
The UK, New Zealand, Singapore and Malaysia are at the top of his list. But in the meantime, Cheng said his primary focus is on the Australian market.
His latest idea is for an event space similar to a paint-and-sip studio, where groups of friends can sign up to customise their own shoes together.
“Send us all your sizes, we’ll acquire Jordan 1s or Air Force 1s, and when you come in, there will be paint and brushes, and you can just get drunk and paint your shoes for as long as you want,” he said.