Ytu & Daughters, Romania
Andrea Pop is a part of a family business that creates musical instruments in the small Romanian town of Reghin. Her father has been an instrument maker for 35 years and for the last 25 years he has run a business called Ytu Pop Strings, where his entire family is involved. He believes the main asset in his business is his daughter Andrea, who is a professional cello player and helps to adjust the sound and functionality of each instrument once it’s made. This company entered eBay only last year, but thanks to the platform their instruments are already well-known and played across the world – in Europe, in the United States, Canada, even Japan, and China.
Andrea and her father Dumitru Pop live in Romania, in Reghin — a city with a tradition in making musical instruments, especially violins, cellos and double basses. Dumitru has been an instrument maker for 35 years, and for the last 25 years he has been running his own workshop Ytu Pop Strings, which is also his username on eBay. All his family members help him, and he has employees who have been working in the workshop for years.
“Our work is reflected in the precious instruments we are making, whose fame has spread to almost every corner of the world,” says Dumitru. “Our asset in the business and in successfully making our instruments available far and wide is our daughter who is a professional cello player. Together with her I adjust the sound and the functionality of each instrument, creating a great advantage against competitors.”
“On eBay, we sell exclusively overseas. The descriptions accurately describe the manufacturing process: we have a workshop, my father makes the instruments, and I play them, which gives me a different perspective on them. Thus, from this ’perspective, I can recommend exactly what another instrumentalist client might require, at least in terms of the sound,” says Andrea.
By selling on eBay, they have increased their customer base threefold. Their instruments are played in Europe, in the US and Canada, even Japan and China. “eBay gives us the advantage of selling abroad very easily and of reaching out to customers from parts of the world that otherwise would be hard to get to,” adds Andrea.
eBay sales make a very important part of their current income because they focused on it when they noticed how well things were going and how smoothly everything worked. For Andrea and her father, being nominated as Rising Star is a reward and a recognition of their hard work.