Wilio, the online marketplace on construction and house maintenance sector, launched in Romania

Wilio, the online platform that easily connects users with craftsmen and other professionals of the construction and maintenance of the house sector, was officially launched in Romania, on Wednesday, in media event also attended by the co-founder of the Slovak company, Martin Winkler.

In 2018, two Slovaks, Martin Winkler and Frantisek Duracinsky, founded a platform where people could register their needs ꟷ constructions, renovations, repairs, installations ꟷ  around the house or flat so that handymen, craftsmen, and other professionals and companies to take them over. After its official launch in Slovakia, in 2019, in only 2 years, 29.604 professionals and companies registered on the platform, and more than 71.000 projects were solved.

3 years later, the platform becomes available in Romania too, the country where a personal experience gave Martin Winkler the idea to start Wilio. In 2013, while he was on a business trip in Bucharest, he needed a taxi. Then, a Romanian colleague showed him a taxi calling application. This inspired Winkler, on his return to Slovakia, to develop with a partner, the first taxi app in this country, HOPIN. Meanwhile, it has become the number 1 ride-hauling-shared economy application in Slovakia, with 140.000 rides per month.

After a while, Winkler thought how it would be if when in need of a repairman, a person could just connect with one as effortlessly as he does now with a driver on a dedicated application? That’s how Wilio was born.

A three-step procedure

From the beginning, Wilio was designed as a friendly platform where people can present their projects and a professional can take on them as soon as possible.  After accessing the Wilio website or after downloading the mobile app, people can create an account as a client or as a provider, according to their needs. If they are a client, they can select a category that reflects the needed service: architecture and engineering; furniture, tiles, and floors; facades, plaster and painting; and so on. After choosing the service he needs, the customer can introduce any details he wants, specifics of the problem he wants to solve, from dimensions to colors and materials. The last step is to publish the project on the platform.

From there, the users of Wilio will receive offers from professionals that are able to complete the job. “Finding the right professional used to be time-consuming. The customer usually had no other choice than to seek pros through family, acquaintances, and in many cases to search for pros on the Internet. Thanks to Wilio application, most people will receive an answer or a price offer to their request from pros that are nearby in an hour or so”, explains co-founder of Wilio, Martin Winkler.

Therefore, Wilio acts as an intermediate between customers looking for services and companies and professionals that are able to solve their problems. It works based on reviews, so any lack of professionalism can be immediately sanctioned and customers have a quality guarantee. Moreover, the representatives of the company announced there will be new features that will guarantee an even safer purchase of services for customers and an even higher quality of leads for professionals.

Wilio in Romania

Wilio had its soft launch in Romania this year, in July, and in just 2 months, more than 3,100 professionals registered on the platform and over 2,500 projects were published, a proof of the the necessity of this platform here. Wilio representatives hope that in 1 year, in Romania, over 10,000 professionals and companies will join the platform and that the number of projects will reach over 20,000.

“Wilio is digitizing access to traditional services. With customers in Romania now more and more open and intensively using online tools, we feel we can bring Wilio to Romania. Our goal is to help  customers easily find quality service providers from nearby area and save money and increase the  quality of services offered at the same time. Simultaneously, we wish to support the small and medium-sized businesses, to help them reach new customers during the current tough times due to the coronavirus”, states Winkler, adding that when it comes to entering a market such as Romania, the key factor is the situation of that market.

“Users must be open to the service. Thanks to the rapid growth of e-commerce over the last ten years, customers have grown accustomed to searching and ordering various services on the internet. They trust online reviews and demand speed in solving their requirements. These are all prerequisites for the success of a platform such as Wilio”, further explains Martin Winkler.

Presence in other countries

This year, Wilio has been launched in other European countries too, such as Hungary and Turkey. Entering new markets was a priority for Wilio especially because of the COVID-19 pandemic, a situation that represents a great risk for self-employees and small entrepreneurs.

How much do Romanians pay for house maintenance services compared to other people from Central Europe?

Wilio, the platform that connects handymen and other professionals of the house construction and maintenance services market with potential customers, has as its main goal to support freelancers and small businesses in these difficult times due to the Coronavirus pandemic, but also to help people find the qualitative services they need. For this reason, Wilio conducted a comparative analysis of the prices on this market, registered in three countries, Romania included, for a wider vision upon the evolution of costs.

Compared to other countries from Europe, Romanians pay a balanced amount for construction and maintenance services around the house. However, there are services where they have to take out of their pocket more than countries like Hungary, for example, where the minimum wage is similar. Wilio, the online platform that easily connects people and handymen, and other specialists too, gathered data from Romania and two other countries in order to see how the prices vary and what are the most requested services on the platform.

Prices in the construction area

When it comes to the construction of a turnkey house, the lowest price registered is in Hungary, where the citizen will pay 1.492 euros per square meter. In Romania and Slovakia, the price is approximately 300 euros bigger, a square meter being 1.712, respectively 1.727 euros. According to Wilio, these numbers reflect the prices for a 4 room family house, with reinforced concrete foundations and an area of 110 m². The prices include leveling, complete construction of the building, with water distribution, waste and sewerage, electricity, air conditioning, and also floors, windows, doors and bathroom equipment as standard. It also includes fencing of the entire plot, lightning rod, and gutters.

In this category, the Wilio platform detains data about projects with price ranges that show great variations. While in Hungary most often the projects’ value is between 400 and 2.900 euros, in Romania the customers often have larger projects starting at the value of 2.500 euros going up to 22.000 euros per project on average. These numbers show that Romanians and Hungarians are getting acquainted with the platform, opting for smaller projects in the “turnkey house” category. In other words, they choose certain steps of this large project that is constructing a house, like wood cladding, waterproofing of the foundations, wiring projects, or parquet laying. Clearly, Romanians have already gained a certain level of trust in Wilio.

In Slovakia, where Wilio is, of course, already a well-established brand, with 3 years market presence, the customers don’t hesitate to complete a full house construction through the platform and therefore the projects for the construction of a turnkey house range between 81.000 to 160.000 euros.

Another service where Romanians score high-priced projects on Wilio is for gardening projects. Though it’s not in the top 10 most requested services, more Romanians take care of their gardens than Hungarians or Slovaks. Hungarians usually have projects in the price range between 100 and 400 euros, followed by Slovakia, with a price range of 250-850 euros. In Romania, on the other hand, the projects are larger and they cost between 320 and 8.000 euros, probably because here a decorative garden it’s rather a luxury, so only a privileged part of the population can afford this full service.

Otherwise, the prices for small gardening projects are similar. In Romania and Slovakia, trimming trees costs 23, respectively 25 euros per tree. In Hungary, the cost drops and such an action is around 19-20 euros.

How much for the repairs around the house

There are some services where Romanians pay less than other citizens of Central Europe. For example, when it comes to hiring an electrician, the maximum they pay for one is 120 euros, whilst Hungarians and Slovaks pay between 400 and 460 euros, respectively between 300 and 600 euros.

If we’re talking about the electrical installation, like installing the switches and sockets, the costs are similar for Romanians and Hungarians, they pay 40-55 euros. In Slovakia this cost doubles: 70-140 euros.

According to the data detained by Wilio, regarding repairing around-the-house services, the prices are similar. For example, if we talk about changing an electrical socket, a Hungarian would pay 7 euros, a Slovak 9, and a Romanian 10 euros. As for painting the walls, a double layer of white paint per square meter is the cheapest in Slovakia, where it costs 1.8 euro, followed by Romania, with 2 euro, and then Hungary, with 2.24 euro.

If he needs to install a window with insulating double glazing, the Romanian will have to pay 110 euros and the Slovak, 116 euros per piece. The Hungarians get the lowest prices on this action, with an amount of around 95 euros.

The most requested services in Romania

The first service that Romanians look for is painting, most of them do this once every few years.  On Wilio, 8.63% of the users requested this service. Then they put great value on flat renovation, the same level as Slovaks, and then, on cleaning services, a top priority for Hungarians – being their number 1 most requested service. 6.23% of the Wilio Romanian-users contracted a specialist for their flat renovation, and 3.56% and 3.47% of them asked for someone for cleaning or plumbing. Speaking of plumbing, Romanians pay the smallest amount for this utility, the maximum amount registered on Wilio being 650 euros for a project, while in Hungary, the maximum amount is that of 850 euros, and in Slovakia of 1.000 euros. Also, the workforce in this area is cheaper in Romania, with a price range between 150 and 270 euros. To hire a plumber, a Slovak would pay between 120 and 270 euros and a Hungarian between 150 and 650 euros.

The least requested service in Romania is that of the handyman. This can be explained by looking at studies made over the last years that show the fact that people don’t ask friends anymore for recommendations when looking up this service.

Customers in Romania used Wilio for 2,000 house projects, 2762 providers enlisted

In the context of the pandemic, the platform comes as a great help not only for people willing to solve their problems around the house but also for the handymen and other specialists that can easily make offers. “For self-employed and small entrepreneurs, Coronavirus means not only a health but also an economic existential risk. Wilio has a goal to offer an alternative way of gaining customers to sole proprietors and small businesses and to help them survive this difficult period”, states Martin Winkler, co-founder of the platform.