INTERNATIONAL
Online drycleaning service, Zipjet https://www.zipjet.co.uk has released a study revealing cost of drycleaning a suit in 100 countries around the world. Zipjet wanted to discover how cleaning services contribute to worldwide trade, to establish not only how the cost of this service varies from nation to nation, but also how much the drycleaning industry contributes to the economy as a whole. The study can be found at
https://www.zipjet.co.uk/2018-global-dry-cleaning-index#GBP
The study began by handpicking 100 cities around the world, focusing on capital cities, business centres and financial districts. To source the cost of drycleaning a suit, Zipjet looked at the average price of cleaning 2 and 3-piece suits in each location, as both a package deal and as separate jacket and trousers.
Once this figure was determined, the deviation from the average could be calculated, which reveals how much more or less expensive the service is in comparison to all of the other cities in the study.
The final index is ranked highest to lowest, based on the cost of drycleaning a single suit.
In an effort to give the data some human perspective, the number of hours an individual on minimum wage must work to dry clean one suit was calculated. This data also establishes the overall affordability of the service in each city, and gives an indication of standard of living. Finally, to establish how much capital dry cleaning adds to the economy, the amount that each country spends on drycleaning suits per year was calculated. This was determined by multiplying the yearly cost of drycleaning with the total number of professionals who typically wear suits such as bankers, lawyers, insurance brokers, governmental workers and teaching staff, to give an indication of the total national cost.
“For traditionally business-oriented cities, such as Oslo, Helsinki and Zurich, our study shows that citizens are paying between 13-30% more to dryclean their suits than the rest of the world. Although you could consider this a ‘suit tax’, our data also shows that as salaries are higher in these nations, it would only take around 1 - 3 hours of working at minimum wage to afford such a service in these cities.” says founder and MD of Zipjet, Florian Färber. “We hope therefore that this index might serve as a useful tool for young professionals searching for a lucrative yet affordable new city to call home. Geneva and Copenhagen, for instance, are great examples of how the index acts as a useful indicator of overall affordability, as the data illustrates that despite high drycleaning costs, the cities also offer higher wages.”
The table below reveals the results for the top 10 most expensive cities to dryclean one suit (cost of drycleaning a suit in £ GBP):
- 1 Oslo Norway 37.02
- 2 Helsinki Finland 29.26
- 3 Gothenburg Sweden 24.99
- 4 Aarhus Denmark 24.36
- 5 Zurich Switzerland 21.91
- 6 Stockholm Sweden 19.47
- 7 Graz Austria 17.93
- 8 Auckland New Zealand 17.35
- 9 Vienna Austria 16.97
- 10 Amsterdam Netherlands 16.74
London, UK ranks 17 in the index, costing £15.06 to dryclean a single suit.
The table below reveals the results for the top 10 least expensive cities to dryclean one suit:
- 1 Jakarta Indonesia 1.56
- 2 Colombo Sri Lanka 1.78
- 3 Shanghai China 2.06
- 4 Mumbai India 2.46
- 5 Cairo Egypt 2.46
- 6 Kolkata India 2.48
- 7 Rabat Morocco 2.72
- 8 New Delhi India 2.75
- 9 Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam 2.76
- 10 Algiers Algeria 2.86
Russians are the biggest contributors to the global drycleaning economy, spending £2,323,703,266 per year on drycleaning suits, with the USA second with £2,155,490,351. Further details can be found on the Zipjet website.
“This index highlighted some interesting case studies where vast competition has led to lower than usual prices for drycleaning, said Färber.
“Take Milan for instance, where it costs only £5.07 to dry clean a suit, almost half the price of Madrid where it costs £8.72, despite both cities having a reputation for their smart, suit-wearing fashion sense.”
He added: “On the other side, despite a huge proportion of individuals wearing suits in Russia, their drycleaning costs are some of the highest in the study, and the most unaffordable in relation to minimum wage. This hints that perhaps suit-wearing in Russia comes with a certain social prestige which keeps the prices high, whereas suits are a way of daily life in Italy and therefore come at a more reasonable cost to clean.”
