Laundry App Poplin Adds On-Demand Shoe Cleaning for $30 a Pair

Poplin made its name hauling millions of loads of laundry off Americans’ to-do lists. Now the on-demand service is betting it can do the same for the sneakers piling up by the front door. Poplin founder and CEO Mort Fertel has launched Poplin Shoe Cleaning nationally — a hand-cleaning service priced at 30 US dollars a pair, with free pickup and delivery handled through the company’s existing app.

The mechanics are simple. Customers schedule a free pickup in the Poplin app; the shoe exteriors are cleaned by hand, interiors are deodorized and refreshed, the pair is air-dried properly to protect shape and materials, then packaged and returned — usually within three days. The service targets sneakers, canvas shoes and everyday casual styles, with suede and Ugg-type shoes slated to be added in the fourth quarter. Fertel is careful to set expectations: this is cleaning and refresh, not restoration, and deep or set-in stains may remain.

The rationale is rooted in Poplin’s existing scale. “We have tens of thousands of existing customers regularly using our laundry service, and we asked if they’d use this service and many said yes,” Fertel said. Poplin already handles roughly 6 million loads a year across 48 states and 8,000 cities, and its network of some 200,000 independent laundry professionals is the engine behind the new offering. Marketing to existing users — who see the shoe-cleaning link each time they schedule a laundry pickup — gives the company an immediate, built-in audience that a standalone startup could only dream of.

Fertel sees a clear gap in the market. “No one is offering this type of service on a national scale,” he argued, and he expects word of mouth to do heavy lifting, especially among sneakerheads — a community obsessive about keeping prized kicks pristine. He also points to practical economics: at-home cleaning kits often cost about as much as the service itself, minus the time and effort. “It’s annoying, not easy, and time-consuming,” he said of the DIY route.

The revenue ambition is sizable. “If we can get the traction I think we can, our goal is to do 20 million US dollars in this service next year,” Fertel said. That would be a meaningful new line on top of the core laundry business, and a test of whether convenience-commerce habits established during the pandemic have permanently rewired consumer behaviour.

For the footwear aftercare market, Poplin’s entry is a noteworthy validation. Shoe cleaning and restoration have long been the domain of local cobblers and niche specialists; a national, app-based player could professionalise and standardise the category the way ride-hailing reorganised transport. The 30-dollar price point positions it as an impulse add-on rather than a premium indulgence.

Whether Poplin can hit its 20-million-dollar target depends on repeat usage — shoe cleaning is a recurring need for sneaker lovers, but a one-time curiosity for everyone else. If Fertel is right that his customer base is already primed, Poplin Shoe Cleaning may turn out to be the rare adjacency that actually sticks.

Source: Footwear Plus Magazine, October 15, 2026.