“As an economist, I have never dealt with gardening,” says Ion Waszkiewics, owner of Iasi-based company Green Service. But the idea came shortly after Waszkiewics visited a gardening fair in Bucharest. As almost all the large cities had companies providing such services and Iasi lacked one, Waszkiewics thought this business should be profitable.
The money for the initial investment of 15,000 dollars came from Waszkiewics’ personal savings and credits. “I started this business thinking that, if it worked, I would be satisfied, and if not, I was to head for something else,” Waszkiewics said.
Although the company started working one month ago, he says the first results are encouraging and there’s no need to look for something else.
Green Service has two gardening offers, as the season has just opened: “living garden” and “entertaining garden.”
The living garden is the space where furniture (tables, benches, playgrounds and even pools) prevails. According to Waszkiewics, the entertainment garden aims at people’s rest and careful planning is very important.
The owner of Green Service admits that his business targets prosperous people, but he hopes that the company will receive more orders as the living standard improves.
“We target residential areas in Iasi and we generally focus on direct sales, but we have reached the conclusion that advertising with billboards and newspapers is quite effective as well, as more people are coming to us,” Waszkiewics considers.
The company plans DM100,000 in turnover this year, as it currently covers six counties in Moldavia. The order is processed by visiting the grounds, drawing the project on a computer and then effectively working on the project.
Lawn setting is the cheapest, as it costs only 15,000 lei/square metre, while the fountain installation is the most expensive, since its price can reach several dozens of thousands of Deutsche marks, even though it is actually installed in a few hours.
“A lot of people feel that the lawn is too expensive and that grass is good enough. But there is a huge difference between them, as grass grows uncontrollably, while the lawn grows uniformly and is thicker.”
The price of 15,000 lei for one square metre of lawn includes the cost of seeds (10,000 lei) and the manufacturing costs (5,000 lei) for paying the employees’ salaries and taxes. “We eventually get about 2,000 lei in profits,” Waszkiewics says.
Green Service has already managed to land two large contracts. One is a 2 hectare-lawn for Metro stores based in Iasi and Bacau. The other is a 600 square-metre football ground for a Iasi inhabitant who is a soccer fan.
On the other hand, the company distributes seeds, irrigation systems, pumps, lawn mowers, as well as other gardening accessories.