47 new Retailers for Romania. Franchise EXPO summary
Franchise EXPO is over. The no.1 exhibition for Franchises in Europe has closed its doors on Wednesday. This was the first year that Romania participated in the exhibition with a stand. The… guilty parties (that put an end to the usual strategy of “doing nothing – waiting for everything”) were the Romanian Association for Franchise (ARF) and my company MORE Real Estate Services.
ARF presented its Franchise Exhibition that will be held in May 17th and 18th at the fair, while we communicated our new project, about which I will talk to you in the near future. Collaborations are not usual in Romania, but I am happy to tell you that our collaboration with ARF and Mr. Constantin and Mrs. Cosmina Anton was excellent. When there is a common goal and professionalism, it is easier to build stronger teams and reach better results.
47 new Retailers willing to expand in Romania
The show hosted some 450 Franchise projects, most of them exhibiting with a model of their real outlet! Our strategy was not just to wait for the visitors to pass by our stand, but also to establish meetings and present the potential of Romanian Retail to them. This is something that proved to be very fruitful, as more than 120 companies showed interest. At the same time 47 of them asked for extended material and feedback, in order to seriously analyze the scenario of expanding in Romania and requested to start receiving feedback from us.
Not bad for a start…
One Mall developer – 3 investors
I didn’t expect it to happen, but our perseverance to remain at our stand until the last second of the fair proved to be a good choice. On Wednesday afternoon, while most of the exhibitors had already left, “out of the blue” I had a long serious discussion with a gentleman who represents a Mall developer. It seems that a new project may start during the following months, most probably out of Bucharest.
But this was not the only positive surprise. We also met with 3 investors, plus several other serious companies and private entities with interest to be present on the Romanian market.
Many new agreements, many new countries on the list
Franchise EXPO helped us also to build new collaborations with institutions, exhibitions, associations etc. For example, our calendar has already 3 new dates marked, when we will attend important events and exhibitions, promoting Romania there.
I hope that next year there will be even more Romanian companies joining us and, why not, some of them searching for master franchisees abroad.