In the past few years, Romanians started to use more the services of cleaning firms, choosing the ecologic alternatives of dry cleaning, which are currently limited in number, for the soaring demand. Opening an ecologic cleaning firm requires minimum 50,000 euros initial investment, according to holders’ statements.
“The initial investment was approximately 250,000 euros,” said Cristi Toanchina, partner at Lavanderia, ecologic garment cleaning company opened in September last year. One year after the opening, the company extended network to five branches in Bucharest, and four days ago, the firm opened a new unit in Mega Image supermarket from Titan.
For only one cleaning unit, approximately 75,000 euros were allocated to equipments, expendables, means of transport, pay packages and rent, but it is a permanent investment in quality of used products. “We use new washing and finishing equipments imported from Italy and biodegradable detergents,” Anca Toanchina, partner at Lavanderia stated.
She stresses that in general, an ecologic cleaning firm can be opened with 50,000 euros minimum investment, but they can exceed 100,000 euros for one unit, given the quality of washing equipments, new or second-hand, ecologic detergents and location.
The company opened garment cleaning units in Dorobanti Square, Traian Square, Vitan Square, and in hypermarkets: Kaufland (Barbu Vacarescu), Real (Vitan) and Mega Image (Titan). “We are negotiating with Mega Image to open a unit in each store of the network”, said Anca Toanchina, who considers doing the same with Real and Kaufland. “We will seek for strategic locations,” Cristi Toanchina added.
Future plans of the company confirm the trend of ecologic garment cleaning firms in finding locations in biggest commercial centers and hypermarkets. “We plan on closing year with 10 units. We will open four more bra
