A marketing professional says her online detergent subscription service has the potential to shake up the ‘boring’ laundry market.
Tunbridge Wells-based Paula Quazi is excited to fully launch Smol next month, the enterprise she co-founded with business partner Nick Green.
The former Unilever marketers have been developing it over three years. Using a similar model to California’s successful Dollar Shave Club, subscribers pay £3.85 for a 24-capsule pack of washing machine tablets which can be delivered to meet a customer’s schedule.
Ms Quazi said that despite UK consumers spending almost £1billion on washing machine products every year, three multinational firms [Unilever, Procter & Gamble and Reckitt Benckiser] currently dominate the market.
“Detergent is expensive and it is not reflective of the product,” said the 48 year old.
“By delivering directly we can cut the price and it is a better product from a supplier independent of the big three. It costs consumers up to half what they would pay for the product in a shop.”
Smol, Millennial slang for something that is small and sweet, is supplied in suitably ‘funky’ recyclable packaging, which is described by its co-founder as like a ‘fat iPad’.
Since launching on a trial basis this month, early sign-ups for the product have ‘smashed targets’ despite only being advertised locally.
With the support of an advertising agency, a full campaign begins in April, with early subscribers offered a free trial. www.smolproducts.com
