Businessmen from Alytis brought a unique product to Lithuania, which is bought by settlers from all over the country

When entrepreneurs offer their customers products that they have tested themselves and use in their homes every day, it can be expected that the customer will not be disappointed with the product. When the business is developed by a family that values ​​sustainability and ecology responsibly, you can expect that you will purchase a quality and long-lasting item from them.

Donatas and Inga Baladinska from Alytis are an excellent example of responsible and sustainable business. These people popularized a unique product in Lithuania – bamboo flooring, created a market for their product here and opened the door for bamboo flooring to all of Europe. In addition to unique floors that create home comfort, the entrepreneurs decided to offer their customers even more refined interior details, so they opened a store for exclusive home decor products.

We talk to entrepreneur Inga Baladinskien about starting a business, the difficult path to success and the search for new ways to create home comfort.

– Inga, how did your family business start?

– Our path to business began almost 12 years ago. We were building our house, we were looking for finishing materials, specifically the interior floor. The main criteria for choosing the floor covering were: naturalness, hardness of the floor, its stability and extremely high thermal conductivity.

We found such a floor, it was a pressed bamboo floor. But for us, young people at that time, just starting a common life together, such a floor was very expensive. Outstanding, good product but not for our pocket. But I said, “I won’t be me if we don’t have that floor in our house.”

– Did you manage to get those bamboo floors? What was the search path?

– The search began, which took us to distant Asia. Together with friends and relatives interested in such flooring, who were also building houses at the time, we ordered the first incomplete container of bamboo flooring directly from the factory in China.

The floor arrived, was cleared, delivered and finally installed by craftsmen in our home. And so began our journey with sustainable, eco-friendly, stable grass flooring.

– And then you thought, wouldn’t it be worth offering such a floor to other people setting up their homes? How did you manage to promote the new product?

– You know, when you buy a good product, you always want to share it. That’s where it all started.

In the beginning, our house advertised the floor, we also advertised the floor, intensively participating in construction finishing exhibitions, boldly and firmly spreading the word about floors that are good to live on. Sincerity, openness and direct communication – this was the key to the hearts of our customers.

Every year we participated in exhibitions 3-4 times, we were constantly looking for not only customers, but also partners for trade in Lithuania and abroad. We were looking for those who would believe in us and our product the way we believed and still believe today, even twelve years later.

We are always happy with our customers’ feedback, their recommendations for others to buy bamboo floors. At the moment, they do a lot of work for us, because everyone knows that the best advertising is word of mouth, where we really had to go a long way to get there.

Today, together with my husband, we can only rejoice that it was not only one of the best decisions for decorating our home, but also the start of a business.

– So what makes finishing materials made of bamboo special?

– First of all, I want to mention that we only import products from pressed bamboo. Traditional bamboo flooring, glued with strips, was popular in the market more than 20 years ago. Pressed bamboo flooring is classified as a new generation floor, which is characterized by extremely high density of the material, which results in extremely high hardness and durability of the material. This type of bamboo flooring is more than 2 times harder than oak flooring, provides excellent heat transfer in the case of underfloor heating and also maintains its stability, naturalness and features minimal maintenance and excellent wear. Pressed products for outdoor use, unlike indoor flooring, are made by thermally treating bamboo raw material. In the production process, thermally treated products reach the 1st durability class, serve for 25 years. and longer. It is interesting that pressed bamboo (in pressing, practically no binding materials are used, because bamboo itself has a lot of natural binding material) does not have a spiral structure, otherwise known as a “memory” twist, curling like a tree, so bamboo products, especially for outdoor use, is characterized by excellent product stability and dimensional retention under any climatic conditions.

– How did the business start? Did you have to learn while the business moved forward?

– The first dreams for business development, shared with my husband, whether we would ever order the first full floor container, came true a year later. The beginning was difficult, we worked and still work with one of the smallest markets, with a floor covering that is still not well-known in the market, with traditions where oak covering took the first place when choosing a natural covering. Driven by great enthusiasm, trust and vision of the future with bamboo, we were also trusted by the three largest factories with which we still work today. Was it difficult? Yes, all orders – only in full containers, all payments only in advance, investments are certainly not ten thousand each and always accompanied by risks.

– What fascinated you about the new business?

– The business path during those 12 years was really interesting and charming in its own way: from the exhibition of floor samples in their own homes, when the customer was boldly invited to come, get to know both the products we sell and us as sellers, the storage of products in the garage of the house, the unloading of containers by hand, designing exhibition stands and preparing them until the decoration and interior salon “Šiaurės panda” opened its doors in Alytus last year.

– As far as I understand, this is a new business. What inspired him to create it? Was the bamboo floor small?

– During the development of UAB “Bambuko Grindys” activities over the years, after communicating with buyers of bamboo floors, earning their trust and constantly returning excellent recommendations, we decided to expand the range of quality finishing and decor materials and meet the needs of customers by answering the constant question asked to us “What else?” can you suggest?” Thus, “Northern Panda” was born.

– How did this name come about? What does Northern Panda offer?

– “Northern Panda” is a home of finishing materials and interior decor, which allows only the highest quality market-proven products, exclusive brands, applied to a selected range of salon goods: various types of interior floors, carpets, wall decoration, interior decor elements, stabilized flower arrangements , for home fragrances, candles, planters, vases, and an attention-grabbing women’s-only holiday and summer line.

Both in our online store www.siaurespanda.lt, both in “Šiaurės pandas” decoration and decor house, which is located in Alytus, Naujoji st. 50, you will always find a wide range of finishing materials for newly building or renovating your home, as well as exclusive interior decor elements, creating home comfort or giving beauty to someone else.

– What exclusive products can be found at your place? What other services do you provide?

– This year we are expanding our range of self-produced products and will soon launch the Organic 5 line, which is a CNC-milled wall covering made of bamboo and wood combined with aged mirror, metal and stabilized moss. Also interior details made of plaster, natural dried plants and pieces of wood, vad. drift wood. The products will be produced for foreign markets, but our customers will be happy to purchase them at our showroom.

We install all the floors, both indoor and outdoor terraces, that you can buy from us. Therefore, our client can always be assured that good, high-quality materials will never be damaged, will be used extremely efficiently and installed in a high-quality manner with the lowest output. I myself am very pretentious about quality, so we set only the highest requirements for both materials and work. Often, other customers only ask for our installation service, but, knowing well the majority of the floor assortment on the market, we often refuse, because the professionalism of the master’s work depends a lot on the quality of the materials chosen by the customer.

“Northern Panda” is a home for everyone who appreciates quality, aesthetics and uniqueness. I could tell a lot about each product in the salon, but the best thing is to see everything with your own eyes, so we invite you to visit our salon in Alytus or browse the online store and choose the right product for you, which will delight you for many years.