Roberto and Cristina Batlan, owners of footwear brand Musette, have found a solution to Chinese competition: to move production to China, BUSINESS Magazin reveals.
Since last year, Cristina Batlan has been commuting to Vaslui county to oversee the footwear production of the Husi plant she owns together with her husband. The fate of Musette, a family business, worth 6m euros last year generated from the manufacturing and sale of footwear and leather goods, now depends on the number of employees, and on how much they can produce in Musette's two plants: one of which manufactures handbags and accessories in Bucharest and the other, which moved last September to Husi, shoes.
"We could no longer increase production. We went to Husi to secure a specialised workforce," explains Cristina Batlan. However, the investment in the new plant, which covers 5,000 square metres, is just a temporary solution, and Moldova is in fact "the last stop for the period of time we intend to go on working in Romania," considers Cristina Batlan.
Although Musette has succeeded in make their brand famous amid the flood of Chinese, Turkish and Indian products, on a market that is over 90% covered by imports, the owners believe the long-term solution to the problem of insufficient production lies in China.
"We're trying to find out whether the conditions are right for us to produce in China (...)," says Batlan.
The story behind Batlan family's debut into business is simple: two 20-year-old graduates leave the Law faculty to start a fabric business. Shortly, the two gained a position with the biggest fabric wholesalers in Romania and added footwear and leather goods import activities. A handbag factory followed. From 15 handbags per day produced in 2002, Musette has now come to produce 20 times that amount. After handbag production began, the two relinquished the fabric business and footwear distribution.
In 2004, Musette opened its own footwear plant, the one relocated to Vaslui county last year, with a production capacity 60% higher than the Bucharest plant.
Investments in the Husi plant have topped 300,000 euros so far, "but expenses aren't over as we still have yet to reach our optimum capacity," specifies Alin Batlan, Roberto's brother, who joined the business two years ago. Production now stands at around 400 pairs of shoes per day, but the firm targets a figure closer to 500 pairs.
With a 12-store network, which includes two stores in Sofia, Bulgaria, Musette plans to open two more stores in Romania this year, in Baneasa Shopping City and in Constanta, and possibly another two in Bulgaria, in Sofia and Varna.
This year, Musette's bet seems to be its entrance on other market segments. Musette plans to open, in a franchise system, the first Sinequanone store in Romania, a French brand that sell clothes and accessories in over 72 stores in France, plus another 155 on another 26 markets.
Romanian footwear
The industry continues to export almost everything it produces
In 2007, 99.6% of overall domestic production was exported
The domestic market, which is worth 2bn euros, could absorb the domestic production of around 71 million pairs of shoes
While almost the entire output of over 2,000 suppliers was exported, Romanians bought over 89 million pairs of imported shoes
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