Rich List retail boss Ruslan Kogan has slammed $20 hotel laundry fees as insane and taken to washing his clothes in a hotel bath this week.
On Thursday, Mr Kogan, the founder of discount retailer Kogan.com declared it a waste of money to pay expensive hotel laundry fees and encouraged his followers to use the bath just like him.
“It’s just very quick and easy to get the washing done yourself, rather than pay the insane prices,” Mr Kogan told his followers on X. “I just cannot bring myself to get a $10 t-shirt and pay $20 to have it cleaned.”
The entrepreneur’s video showed several items of clothing in his hotel bath full of water as he mentored followers with money saving tips.
“This is what it’s very common for my bathtub in the hotel room to look like when I’m travelling,” he said.
“I grew up this way. My parents arrived in Australia with $90 in my pocket, we grew up very frugal and we made every dollar stretch and it’s in my DNA and the DNA of Kogan.com.”
Pizza order gone wrong
Mr Kogan’s frugality seemingly knows some limits after he also posted a LinkedIn video on Thursday where he walks around Paris’ ultra-luxury shopping square, Place Vendome, in a pair of sunglasses that look suspiciously like designer French brand Cartier.
The sunglasses retail for around $1000 online - equivalent to 50 hotel laundry items. Mr Kogan did not respond to a request for comment on the brand sported over a European summer, which also included trips to the Monaco Grand Prix and a luxury yacht in Croatia.
In the Parisian stroll the entrepreneur again highlighted how he was disappointed in a former Kogan.com employee who ordered 100 pizzas, without seeking to get the best deal across several different delivery stores.
The post created some controversy as some Kogan followers suggested the former employee did little wrong, while others agreed workers should spend a company’s money carefully.
The entrepreneur’s estimated net worth peaked at $500 million in 2020 as shares in his online retailer soared to more than $20 during the pandemic-era lockdowns. Since then Kogan shares have fallen back $4.27 and his 17 per cent stake in the business is worth around $70 million.
“We’re always driving prices down, we’re a discount retailer, we make more profit when our prices are lower. Yes, that sounds counterintuitive, but lower prices drive more volume,” Mr Kogan said on X. “I reckon if hotels halved the price of laundry it would 10x the volume. And they would make way more money.”
Mr Kogan did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story.
Get the latest news from thewest.com.au in your inbox.
Sign up for our emails