The producers of rose oil from their own gardens near the town of Panagyurishte – the Ralchevs – lift the curtain on what exactly goes on at an organic farm and how the plants are grown. When the family’s heir, Vasil, developed his marketing strategy for the family business – “The Ralchev organic gardens” – he wasn’t taking it quite seriously.

He returned from England just a year ago where he graduated business and agriculture management.  He took his first steps in the professional sphere there and though he is only 22, has already published a book of advice on how to prosper in business. “Five steps to a better life” is the title of the book which has, for 6 months, been the best-selling book on his publisher’s list.

“I applied my marketing expertise from England on the products of the family company, and as it turned out it was a much bigger business than I had imagined. So, all of a sudden, I found myself in the cosmetics business and online trading.“ Vasil Ralchev says. In his words, the share of online trade is growing with every passing year. The situation created by the coronavirus pandemic provided an additional boost.

“In England I studied digital marketing and I was shown some new strategies which I decided to try out here,” the young sales expert says. “The most important thing that was explained to me was that advertising should not be targeted specifically at selling the product, it should present the story behind the product. It has tradition, character and vision. This is the algorithm I used to present our range of products, our online store was launched in 2019. And it had an immediate effect in Bulgaria. We didn’t post photographs of the product and explain how good it is, as people usually do, we created blogs where we told the story of my parents and how they started in organic farming in 2000. Back then organic production was rather exotic for Bulgaria.

I tell the story of my mother, one of the founders and first representative of the Bulgarian Organic Products Association in 2006. That marked the start of my family‘s journey into the business of essential oils production. We have been through so many administrative and market obstacles. But my parents have reached the point when they have made a name for themselevs and are selling their peoduce all over the world. So when we adevrtise we do not say – buy our products – we present the Ralchev family and explain how we take care of the gardens and grow the plants organically.

We show the entire process in photographs and video and earn the trust of the buyers. Favourable comments on social media are the best way to advertise.”

The business absorbed the young man more and more which served to give the family’s organic production a powerful boost, quickly reaching out to new European markets.

“At the end of last year - in November, December – we noticed we had a very big wave of customers in the country – over 50,000. That was when I thought to myself that this business could work in other countries as well. I did a survey and developed a business model. We wanted to do the same thing we were doing here – a website and advertising on social media. The only thing missing in that equation was how to get the product to the end users. And we decided we could do this using logistics warehouses in the respective country. It took us three months to do that because of the regulations. We started in Germany in February, with enormous success. Now we sell our products in Great Britain, Greece, Romania, and soon we shall be starting in Poland and Sweden.”