Let's Talk Business

 Let's Talk Business 

ᴛɪᴘꜱ ᴏɴ ᴍᴀᴋɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴏᴡɴ ꜱᴍᴀʟʟ ʙᴜꜱɪɴᴇꜱꜱ

Hi, everyone! It's been a while since I last wrote for my blog. I've gotten so busy with school works and my online business that I forgot to send updates here on my blog. I'm back and ready to share to my readers my knowledge and quick tips to help you get by.

    For this blog post, I will share to you my tips and experiences with online selling. I have always been an entrepreneur for as long as I can remember. I love the hustle, the work, and earning my form of income. Last year March 2019, I established my business named "Merci.Mond". It just came to me one day that I should have my form of income so I would not have to rely on my weekly allowance. I am a full-pledged spender and I worked my way to earn money from my own hard work and efforts.

    I did not have instant success the moment I first started my business. I experienced the struggle of bogus buyers and little to no sales, but I could thrive and my business as of now is blooming and successful. I am very grateful and thankful to everyone who supported it from the first day of my business.

    I am writing this blog to help entrepreneurs start up their own line of business. I also see this as a good opportunity to encourage anyone reading this blog to take the chance and become their own boss.

    I hope this blog will be of great help to anyone who comes across it. Happy reading!

1. Make A Plan

    We step right into the field without deciding on a full-proof plan. When making your own business it's very important to know and learn what products you're going to sell and who your target audience will be. If you know who would want to sell your items to then looking for the items to sell will be an easy task for you. When you decide what items to sell in your shop, consider the quantity, prices, and if these items are saleable for this certain period.

    For example, if your target market are teens then you have to look for items people in their age range think are trendy and chic. A good item to put on sale would be phone cases. These items will never go out of style because (1) phone cases are retailed and sold at cheap and affordable prices (2) it comes in different styles and designs that will not keep your phone safe but as well make it look cute and trendy. These items are easy to sell all year around because it is something that can never go out of style. Next to those are accessories and trendy clothes, these can be thrifted, pre-loved or made by your own. If selling them on-hand will not work for you, then try to consider pre-ordering your items and holding cut-offs at least every week. The only holdback to having pre-order items is the shipping process and if the customers will wait for the items to arrive.

2. Advertise non-stop

    Here is my favorite part in online selling: advertising. It may seem easy, but there are a lot of things you should consider. What are the things to consider when advertising? Social Media Platform and Time. I advertise my products through Facebook and Instagram because I see it as a place where I can gain and attract customers easily. I am a very active person on social media, which makes advertising an easy task for me. Your way of advertising can be different depending on where you are most comfortable with, but for being an entrepreneur you have to step out of your boundaries or your comfort zone to gain experience and more customers.

Look for the time where your viewers are most active to post your products via story or through a post on your feed. In my case, my customers are usually active during the weekends and on a Friday. Using paid ads are useful but the rates differ depending on which platform you plan on using, you will be charged per day if you avail it. Two to three days of paid advertising will do good for your shop and get you the customers and coverage you are aiming for.

3. Build your own aesthetic

    When creating your shop account, think of a name, colors, logos, packaging, and style. You would want to create an account that is aesthetic and pleasing to the eyes. Warm and Bold colors are one of my favorite and mostly used colors because they are pleasing to the eye. It is not too bright or too shocking, it looks just right. Merci.mond's first color pattern was a mixture of blues and browns. I have learned over the past year to give my shop a minimalistic aesthetic because it looks clean and nice to look at. One of the bonus points on gaining customers is to have an aesthetically pleasing theme. It goes the same way when creating your own logo and packaging style. Allow yourself to be creative when making it and look for inspirations that can help make it look a whole level better.

4. Engage!

    Nothing is better than seeing your customers know they are appreciated. I make it a habit to leave small notes in my packages to let my customers know they are appreciated. For every story or posts they share about my products, I put them up on my story and make a space for in my highlights.

    Another tip I have to share is for start-up sellers to engage with their customers, and other sellers make it a habit to engage and earn connections. When I first started my shop, I had only had 300+ followers. In order for my shop follower account to grow I had to join gain groups for local sellers. What are those? Those are group chats for sellers where we can advertise our shops through story posts or shout out for shout out (sfs). In gain groups like that, you can also gain potential buyers and exposure for your store. In a week or less, you will gain between 50-100 followers for your shop.

    "Can I do collaborations?" Yes, you can. It is one way of connecting yourself and your shop with other sellers or influencers. It comes in handy, especially if you have new items on hand and need attention from the spotlight by someone with many following or social media presence.

So far, these are my key tips on making your own online shop. I do hope this will help everyone. Please don't get disheartened, you will reap what you sow in due time. Stay tuned for my next blog post! I'll try doing weekly posts as much as I can.

|| Quarantine Things||

Hi, welcome back to my blog! Thank you for the 390+ views on my blog. I did a quick Q&A on my Instagram account for topics I could write for in my blog. Upon passing by the numerous suggestions, I decided to write about my time during the community quarantine and the activities that I had done. I realized that during the community quarantine, I had a lot of available time so I decided to make use of that time and try doing something new and productive. I will be dropping a few ideas you could do while being at the comfort of your own home, these activities can be done at your own time meaning there is no pressure to have to do it right away.

Don't forget to follow my socials to be updated on the latest, I'll be linking my socials and other blog posts for all of you to read. I hope this can be of good use to you, happy reading!

Think about it, after a long day of school you get the chance to finally get that well-deserved rest and relaxation you've been yearning for the past few weeks. At first, I found the freedom and relaxation enjoyable until I eventually grew tired of not doing anything productive the first few weeks. So, I decided to spice things up by trying out new things and developing my own talents and skills. Here's a few of the things that might be a good addition to your list of to-do's during the community quarantine:

1. Try writing!

Writing a book, a short story or even a journal is a good activity for a person to do while being stuck at home. Why? according to a study done by M. Cecil Smith, Ph.D, writing can help you think and can make you feel good.  It has been demonstrated, across a variety of investigations, that writing activities yield a number of intellectual, physiological, and emotional benefits to individuals (Smith, n.d). For me, writing is a way for me to express what I feel and what I want to say but cannot find a way to verbally release it.

A good place to put in your thoughts could be a personal journal or if you're into story writing and more then wattpad or fanfiction.net can be your best bet when it comes to writing any genre of stories. I've been since fourth grade and I can say it's a great outlet especially when your thoughts are in a mess or if you can't express what you feel verbally. If you do decide to visit wattpad, drop @rosebonneybelle a follow, I'll be updating my stories real soon.

2. Catch up on your shows

Do you remember those days when you told yourself you'd watch that show but never had the chance to do so? This is a good chance for you to catch up on all those promised shows and new series. You've got a lot of time to watch and choose which shows to watch first. I am an avid anime fan and I was so glad that I was given the time to watch and complete different anime series on my pending list.

3. Grow your garden!

If you're looking for seeds and basic gardening tools you can buy them at your local hardware store or you could go visit Shopee. My mom would usually go to Shopee since she can find assorted types of seeds she can plant in her garden at affordable prices especially with the vouchers, sales, and coupons, how could you say no to that?

Lately, my mom has been into planting herbs and assorted plants around the house. Ever since the community quarantine had started, mom finally decided to tend to the garden. My mom has always been fond of growing assorted types of plants, during the community quarantine it gave her the opportunity to groom her garden and expand her knowledge on how to grow flowers, herbs, and vegetables. Now, our garden looks better than ever thanks to her gardening skills. My mom sees gardening as a way of beautifying the surrounding and finds it as an enjoyable outdoor activity.

4. Declutter 

It took a while but I managed to clear out a few of my things that occupied too much space and it really made a difference when you get a good look at it. The room did not feel so messy or crowded, it looked cleaner and much better than before. When I declutter, I get to clear out spaces and make room for my items to be more organized and clean. It is time consuming but it is all worth it to have the place look cleaner and more organized than before.

This was one of the best things I did while I was at home. Over the years, we tend to collect things we think we need but actually don't. So, I decided to use my time and start cleaning out my drawers, cabinets, basically any place where I left to store my "treasures". I'm a low-key hoarder so, it was hard to let go of a few things that I owned but then I thought, "do I really need these?" or "will I be able to use them?". I make it a habit to make two different piles to differentiate the ones that I want to keep and the ones I no longer need. It's a big help especially if you can't decide whether you'd want to keep them or give them away.

5. Develop a new hobby

I have been looking forward to practice making digital art but I never found the time to do so. I would often tell myself "I'll do it next time" to the point where I eventually got too busy and forgot to do it. All this free time has got you thinking "what should I do next?". I am sure during the first few weeks it was all fun and relaxing but now, you're bored out of your mind and don't know what else to do. How about training yourself to develop a new skill or a hobby? With the given free time you can finally focus and finish your pending list of skills and hobbies you were planning to learn about. In my case, I was able to practice on my skills and hobbies such as writing and making digital art.

6. Bake a Cake

Well, it's not something I have tried but I have a few friends of mine have considered discovering new recipes and pastries to make. It was a fun and relaxing activity for them and it was a good way to practice and master their skills in cookery. Although, the clean up isn't as fun as you would expect it to be, the process and patience of making the sweets was worth it. This activity can be done even if you don't have any oven or high-end materials for baking, there are a lot of recipes you can find online that do not require an oven or anything out the ordinary.

7. Try out a new workout routine

Here's another neat suggestion, although I don't do it too often, it is a good practice to help keep the body and mind at peace. My routine would usually be doing yoga for a good 20-25 minutes a few times in a week. Your work-out does not necessarily have to be long, find a routine than can work for your schedule and for you.

There are a lot more things you can do with the given time. I implore you to explore the different activities you can do at home, you'd never know maybe you might discover a new talent or skill. Even at the comfort of your own home, you can still do fun and exciting activities. I hope this short list of mine has helped! I'll be writing more blogs this week, see you!

|| check out my other blogs ||

|| sweet treats in Davao ||:

https://thedelightfuls.blogspot.com/2020/07/affordable-sweet-treats-in-davao.html

||Affordable Bluetooth Earphones ||:

https://thedelightfuls.blogspot.com/2020/06/inpods-12-review.html

|| Quipper Guides ||:

https://thedelightfuls.blogspot.com/2020/06/my-quipper-experience.html

|| Online Class Apps ||:

 https://thedelightfuls.blogspot.com/2020/06/go-to-apps.html

|| Follow my socials ||:

https://thedelightfuls.blogspot.com/2020/06/first-blog-post.html