Home organizers in China solve people’s storage problems

Global Business

Home organizers in China solve people's storage problems

A new career has emerged in China – home organizers are teaching people with storage problems how to organize the rooms they do have, to get more living space.

CCTV’s Chen Tong talked to home organizers and their clients to find out how it all stacks up.

The expensive rents in downtown Shanghai forced Zhou Chen to move to suburban Puzhuang two years ago. Their 200 square meter villa seemed big enough at the time, but she’s now found there’s just not enough storage space for a shopholic like her.

Zhou tried to organize everything by herself, but the rooms just cluttered up again after a few days. Zhou was desperate until she found a professional home organizer.

Zhou’s home organizer is Han Yien, and she’s been helping others tidy up their homes for a year now. She had no idea that her organizing ideas could become a business until she read a book by a famous Japanese organizer, Marie Kondo.

On New Year’s Eve 2015, Han resigned from the finance company at which she had worked for three years, and committed to making her organizing habits into her profession. Han is now preparing to set up a home organizing studio in Shanghai.

She now offers two services: a consultation service in which Han just answers questions from clients, and another in which she comes herself to clients’ homes. If you need help, the consultation service costs only 300 or 400 yuan, but the on-site service can run to over 10,000 yuan.

Once people get more and more things, that’s when they begin to run into problems. People are coming to understand that the quality of life is way more important than the number of things you own.

Han said there are dozens of organizers in the country, though not many people know about this kind of business yet. She’s even thinking about setting up China’s first home organizers’ group to, naturally, organize how things should be done.


Pierrette Ashcroft discusses the future of home organizing business

For more on home organizing market, CCTV America’s Rachelle Akuffo spoke to Pierrette Ashcroft, certified professional organizer and the CEO of Smart Productivity Solutions.