A am an Indian lady, 24 -years -old but rich. I would like to share my journey to success after venturing into electronics and smartphone business. This is my story.
I grew up in a small village in Mumbai and I had only one parent, a mother. Life was hard to the point of forcing me out of school after completing my high school. I was determined to succeed in school but as fate would have it, I ended up helping my mother with household chores.
I remember it was in 2007 when my uncle took me to New Delhi to help him sell in his shop, which was an electronics shop. I was so excited because it was my first time to visit such a town.
In the agreement, he was to pay me Rs 1, 000, which was good money for me because I had not handled such amount before.
I started working for him, and within 6 months, I had handled over Rs 500,000.I would see with my own eyes how I enriched somebody while I was struggling to survive. I thought to myself, “what if I save and start something like this, afterall, if he kicks me out of this place, I will be helpless and hopeless”. The thought kept on lingering in my mind, each day as I collected money; I wished it was mine-by the way, that’s every worker’s thought.
In 2011, online stores like Alibaba, ebay and Amazon started dominating the electronic and smartphone business. My brother’s business started going down because people started appreciating and buying online from such stores. With time, frustrations dominated my uncle as profits shrunk to worrying levels. At one time, I suggested online store but since he had old school thoughts, he refused.
That was the time I thought of starting my own online store. But the problem I had was the fact that I had no idea how to start. I could consult the internet from morning to evening to get ideas, and luckily, I got an interest article written by shoutmealoud.That was the article that took me step by step until I registered my own domain with namecheap and hosted it at Bluehost.
Six months into starting my business, I earned zero, I felt frustrated, but my own consolation was that I was getting some money from my uncle while still working for him.
I remember it was in 2012 when I received a call from a client who wanted a Nokia phone-at that time, Nokia was the phone trending in India. I sold the phone to the client and made over Rs 500 from the single sale. That night was full of excitement.
I waited for another 1 month until I got another customer. But after that, they started tropping, weekly and even daily. What motivated them was the fact that I was not only cheap but also reliable and genuine. The skills I learnt from my uncle’s business that a successful business is motivated by how the owner treats customers and how reliable you are helped me a lot.
It is now 4 years since I started the business, I have grown to become one of the most reliable electronic online shops in New Delhi. Though my customer base cannot match that of multi-billion onlineshops, I can count myself successful because I live comfortably, dress decently and am able to invest. In short, I have over Rs 10 million in my account, thanks to my business.
I have learnt some lessons, some bitter and others sweet.
One of the most exciting things about this business is that once you sell your product to few clients and provide good services, referrals are enough to make you rich.
It is also one of the few businesses with very low operating costs.
But I have encountered some serious challenges. You will find somebody ordering and asking for delivery and once you deliver, he is not even ready to buy. There are also security problem.
Another biggest challenge is that most Indians trust big players in the industry more than us. Unless you have a sugar coated tongue, chances are that you will terribly fail.