Business without investment

INTRODUCTION

In this article I am going to discuss how you can start your own garment business by selling online without any investment. I will give you an idea but other work such as marketing is your responsibility. 

The reason of writing this article is to encourage youngster to become financially independent without sacrificing your studies. The success of this business model depends on how good you are in marketing and how effectively you manage your venture.

Starting your own business requires hard working and dedication, but the benefits of being an entrepreneur is greater than working for someone else (especially in the long-term). This is something that I personally experienced.

There has been an increase in online businesses due to advance in technology. There are number of businesses such as Amazon and Daraz that benefits from increase in e-commerce (buying and selling products online). Many people now prefer to buy online. One of the main reason is the availability of different varieties of products that people do not found in any physical markets.

For successful online business internet speed and efficient delivery system matters a lot that vary from countries to countries and cities to cities.

BUSINESS MODEL

First you need to find any wholesale market in your city or area that sells shirts, t-shirts, jackets and pants. Those who are living in Karachi can find suppliers at REX Center, near Atrium Mall Saddar. You can contact me to get number of suppliers. It would be my pleasure if I help you.

And indeed in every city there are more than one market that sells such goods. All you need is to find such market.

Once market is found you will find that there are many suppliers selling same goods (pants, shirt, t-shirt and jackets). You must select only those suppliers who have high quality goods even if the price is higher than other low quality suppliers. Quality goods are key to your business success.

Honestly speaking wholesale suppliers are looking for new customers and you can easily make good relationships with them. After finding the suppliers you need to give your whatsapp number. They will daily send you trending pictures of shirts, t-shirts, pants and jackets that you can upload on your website or any other social site. The pictures send are of high quality that helps you in marketing.

Here are some of the pictures send to me by suppliers:

Then you need to decide the name and/or logo of your new business and with this name make own pages on Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, and Instragram. Inform your friends about your startup and request them to share your page with others. You can also increase visitors on your pages by using “booster”.

Maximum orders will come from your own e-commerce website, friends, and Daraz or Amazon if you have registered yourself as a seller.

However, you must be aware of the fact that making pages on social media sites only help to promote your business name and inform others of goods availability. It also help you to allow viewers to visit your online e-commerce website. And for that you must share the link on your social media sites pages.

You might be thinking of cost of making own e-commerce website. There are many famous websites such as Shopify and Woocommerce that allow you to make free e-commerce website for more than one month. Within this time period  you can decide on whether the benefits of making own e-commerce website is greater than the cost of making such site - whether you orders are increasing or not.

During 6 months of your startup your friends will help you more to make revenue than any other mean of selling. So you must focus on meeting their needs by identifying what they like. Make friends Whatsapp business group and send them the pictures send to you by the suppliers.Once you have successfully marketed your goods you will find an increase in number of orders. 

To understand how you make revenue without investing let us take an example.

Usman - a customer- like the design of jacket you uploaded on your website. After confirming the order given, you contacted the supplier who had sent you the pictures. You pay him the cost of jacket and deliver the order to the customer either yourself or letting supplier to deliver directly from the wholesale market via any delivery service. Once customer pay you for the jacket you will recover your cost as well as make profit on the good sold!

However there is one problem in using such model. Your reputation will be damage if the stock is not available.

To prevent such problem you can follow the following suggestions:

1) Buy trending goods in advance/in quantity from suppliers. Such strategy contains risk (if the goods are not sold) but I advise you to only go for such strategy if you have received positive response from the previous strategy.

Note that risk-taking is necessary to achieve something worthwhile. Many successful entrepreneur had taken risk in their life. Without such risk they would not be able to be at the position they are right now.

Richard Branson is one of the best-known entrepreneurial risk-takers in the game. The famous founder of Virgin has tackled everything from starting his own phone service with Virgin Mobile, to disrupting the airline industry with Virgin Atlantic and Virgin America. Ever since Sir Richard was a young lad, he has been hustling up plenty of business ideas that involved loving and learning from risk.

2) This strategy only applies to t-shirts. For such strategy you need to contact to printing sticker shops. Just like your goods suppliers, these shop also send different designs of printed pictures to their customers. Some of the pictures send to me by printing sticker shop are:

Then you need to buy basic shirt (without any design) in advance/in quantity from supplier. One good quality basic shirt (full and half sleeves) will approximately cost  me  RS 250-300. Sticker cost me RS 50 including printing.

What you need to do? Once an order is placed by your customer, you simply use basic shirt stored in your warehouse and paste sticker design on the shirt. Once printing is done you can easily deliver order to the customer. Note that printing sticker shop has its own printing machine and no extra charges other than sticker cost (RS 50) is taken.

Why I prefer this strategy?

You can return basic t-shirts to any suppliers throughout the year if some of these shirts are not sold. This is because basic shirts never get obsolete even if it is stored in your warehouse for the last 10 years!

3) If you are thinking of making your own e-commerce website then to cover the cost of website and make handsome profit I suggest you to contact with different whole sellers selling different varieties of products. For instance, you can add categories like men’s and women’s shoes, electronic products and disposable items such as glass and plates.

Buy small quantities of each category and upload their pictures on your website. In almost every city you can find whole seller of mentioned categories.

CONCLUSION

The business model I have provided is what something I personally experienced. Believe me within the very first month of starting my venture I earn profit of RS 6600 just by selling goods to my friends only. My profit would have been more if I focused on social media sites also.

It is true that you need to work hard during the very first year of your start-up. You may feel that your life is completely bogged-down. Therefore I suggest you to grow your business slowly because we do not want our studies to get affected.

I pray for your success. Let us work together to help those who have the potential to become an entrepreneur. All they need is motivation and proper guidance!

Comment me if you want any help!