Saturday, June 20, 2009

Online business tips from Okinokiyo : #1- Product

Maybe most of you know that I have few online business where this okinokiyo is one of them. The one I can considered as success maybe Kahwin.Net and the Birthday business.

I think Im gonna share what/how to do business online.

#1 : Product/Service.
Make sure you have a good product/service.

I can say that we(my husband and I) did a big mistake when first doing the Kahwin.Net. We lost almost 20K because we dont know what to sell. We thought of selling wedding door gift but then the competition was speechless.Its not that we dont like competition but I think if we are not the pioneer, its quite hard to compete. Unless we have damn good product compared to the current product in the market.

So we tried to sell many things, from mengkuang to scented candle, from labu sayung to crystal, hand fan..etc etc..I cant even remember. We lost even we sold all of them. Lost because we spent lots of moolah to travel from one state to another to get the supplies. OMG I cant even remember..hehehe.

So we sat and have a thought. What were we going to sell? What were items that have demand and were most needed on every wedding day? So we decided to sell the wedding flower aka Bunga Pahar and Bunga Dulang.

But still, we lost. Lost in terms of time and effort. Since I was working, I had to take emergency leave to complete the orders. The worker then was my husband. Sometimes I asked my auntie to help.

So the brilliant husband of mine thought of us selling the knowledge of doing the flower instead of the flower itself. I did the video shooting. It was horrible because it gave me back pain. And my husband was quite strict for the quality of the video I shoot. I had to re-do some of the video so many time but its all worth it.

And the profit is 300%. Awesome?Yes it is..But as I mentioned earlier, the doing part is damn horrible...thats why there is no new collection since I think Im enough of the flowers.Hehe. And we still have orders until now..It was since 2006.So, can you do the maths?Average orders per month is like 20 orders. So we can say that Kahwin.Net is our baby. Our dearly baby.

We provided workshop to the customer also. And unexpectedly, most of them who come are those who wanted to involve in the wedding business not the bride to be. Indirectly, we are selling the knowledge and I hope the money we get is a berkat money.

So, the conclusion is, sell the best product. Or any product-that-is-hard-to-copy by others. Otherwise you can see many copycats in the business.

But just a reminder, you must have a passion to the product you are selling. So that, if there is no one want to buy your product, you wont feel down, but you tend to create more and more new product so that the customers can have selections of items to choose.

I think thats enough for the #1 tips from my little experience. :)

5 comments:

Aidi Gift Creations said...

its a good sharing. i pun ada experience jatuh dlm bisnes ni. we (my hsbnd n i) did a big mistake too and we learnt from it. but you did a great job by selling your knowledge. that is why i told you, you give me such an inspiration in bisnes...hehee..

Mai Okinokiyo said...

Hi Faihah,
Yeah, its tiring but then worth it and best of all, rasa mcm jadik cikgu bila anak murid buat jadik and boleh jual plak tu..Hopefully ilmu berpanjangan and duit berkat..

Thanks for reading.:)

munira said...

thanks share this great info ngan suma ya!
thanks..
saya juga baru berjinak2 ngan online biz nih ;)

arifhayati said...

mai...tak rugi kan share ilmu.... :)mmg berkat..

Mai Okinokiyo said...

munira : good luck yer..:) hope sama2 la kite berjaya..

arif : ye yer insyaAllah berkat.