ZF 15 minutes with a contractor. Magda Staicu, co-founder of The Edit store:…

♦ The business started with ten brands, and today it counts around 50 brands, both of established international producers in this niche, and of emerging studios from different countries.

Magda Staicu, co-founder of the store with interior design products The Edit, believes that the interior design market has a lot of growth potential at the local level, considering that the demand for such services has increased in recent years.

“Working is different in this industry, deadlines are tighter, volumes are higher and negotiation is tougher, but it is an area with potential. Bucharest has become much more effervescent, Romania is an emerging economy that must accelerate the pace of modernization in order to recover some gaps compared to the West, a perspective that stimulates us and gives us confidence”, says Magda Staicu, present in the the ZF show 15 minutes with an entrepreneur, a Ziarul Financiar and Alpha Bank project.

The Edit business was started in 2019 by Magda Staicu and Irina Pogonaru, daughter of Florin Pogonaru, from the passion they developed for interior design. Irina Pogonaru studied interior design, working for several years in this sector as an entrepreneur. However, Magda Staicu gave up the corporate environment, where she worked in various marketing, retail and sales positions, to start The Edit business.

“We decided to launch The Edit, a store of furniture, lighting fixtures and accessories, which subscribe to a special aesthetic. The objects we choose have simple lines and the design transgendes current and trends, it is a timeless design. There is a great concern for details, for sustainability and craftsmanship, that’s what The Edit is all about”, she adds.

The business started with ten brands, and today it counts around 50 brands, both of established international producers in this niche, but also of emerging studios from different countries.

The Edit started as an online platform dedicated to interior design products, and two years ago a physical store was opened.

“The store is not a simple sales space, I thought of it as a space that inspires and influences towards more educated and conscious choices in the area of ​​design. We managed to create partnerships, to strengthen relationships with the professional environment, with architects, with interior designers who helped us train projects in the residential or HoReCa environment”, explains Magda Staicu.

For this year, the entrepreneurs plan to invest in technological solutions that integrate the activity in the warehouse with the financial and back office areas. The investment budget amounts to 500,000 euros.

“In this budget we take into account the redevelopment of the space in the store because we propose that in a few months we will come up with new design solutions to create interest, curiosity, to remain relevant”, states Magda Staicu.

Although the business started as an online platform, the biggest revenue generator is the physical store.

“The online environment represents our volume-generating channel, there most orders are for smaller accessories, from there we recruit consumers. However, the offline store is the main source of income. About 60% of the turnover is generated by the offline store”, she says.

The business had revenues of 1 million euros last year, and the entrepreneurs want an accelerated increase in revenues this year.

“It gives us confidence that the frequency, the number of orders and the average value of the order have increased”, says Magda Staicu.