Before this pandemic struck us, I worked at an office from 8AM to 5PM as a sales engineer for a company in the Metro. I studied the specifications of our products and their technical applications in the field of construction. That way, I could discuss with our prospects the benefits of using our products. It was a decent job, but my monthly salary was simply not enough to cover my financial obligations. For that reason, I decided to get into the business of buying and selling products online with hopes of getting out of the rat race through it. But before I tell you things about my current story, let me first share how I got into sales and marketing.
Green laser pointers
Way back in college, I was a member of a society of students who are into astronomy. And if you've ever been to a "star party" before, an event where people set up telescopes, serve hot chocolate and stargaze, and something like that, you might have also already seen those green laser pointers that we use to point at the stars.
It's a cool item because when you hold it and use it, it's like you've become a Jedi Consular with a green Lightsaber, ready to conquer the world. Or at least the star party. The only difference is, its beam is very thin and extends until something gets in its way, and its beam doesn't hurt - unless you got them straight into your eyes because it could definitely harm and damage your eyes. That kind of laser simply has too much power that we also avoid aiming it towards transiting airplanes above us.
So yeah, that cool item? I used to resell them to students who found them amazing and would like to share their fascination with their own friends and families. At that time, online selling was still not a thing in the Philippines that we only rely on actual or physical shops. Fortunately for me, I found a store where I can get green laser pointers in bulk at a discounted retail price! However, since my market is only limited to people interested in buying such novelty items, I eventually stopped selling.
Rainbow roses
Months have passed, and I saw a picture of a rose on the Internet. But this rose was not just an ordinary rose. This rose had petals of various colors that form a rainbow. It was a rainbow rose.
By the way, these rainbow roses above are my own versions of the one I saw on the internet. 🙂 And if you've seen my other post where I wrote about some of the arts that I've made before, you'll see there that I also made some origami rainbow roses some time in my life. My thinking was, since roses mean differently depending on their colors (white for purity, pink for admiration, red for passionate love, etc.), if there could be a rose in rainbow colors, then it could mean a lot of things.
So when I saw this picture of a rainbow rose, I searched about it and how it's made. I learned that people dye the rose's petals by capillary action. That is, the water that is fed to the roses are dyed. To achieve multiple colors, the stem of the rose must be split into sections and dipped in differently colored water, preferably with the three primary colors: red, yellow, and blue. However, I found it hard to split the stem into three sections equally, so I decided to split the stem into four sections and dip the stems in red, yellow, blue, and violet, in clockwise order.
As the colored waters seep up the stem sections, they will eventually reach the "unsplit" part of the stem, and the colors will combine radiantly, forming the other colors of the rainbow, just like in a color wheel. Magically, the petals will eventually transform into rainbow colors. Oh, did I mention using white-colored rose for this? 😁 By the way, this also works with other flowers with plenty of petals, and if you want to try this out, I'd like to see how yours turned out.
During that time, since Valentine's day was also coming, I decided to get long-stem roses from a local supplier, buy some food color in the bakeshop, and some plastic cups, and created dozens of these roses. I posted it on social media, and I also posted some on our university's bulletin boards. My roses sold out. But after the season of love, I also stopped selling.
My realization
What I realized from these experiences is that we can actually sell (or resell) almost anything. We just need to know our market, perhaps the season, and other factors that could affect our effective selling. But for a business to keep on earning, it must have a continuously buying market, or its product must be consumable that people would buy again and again once they've used up or consumed its products. With the items that I've tried to sell, I failed to observe these product characteristics. Instead, I've focused on the "novelty" side of these products. Although they were sold at good prices, they wouldn't be enough to be consistently selling in the market. If only I had chosen to sell something like food, it would have sold longer, and it might still be earning until now. That is also why I see the potential in my best friend's small business of selling rice cakes topped with cheese or more commonly known as "puto cheese" in our place.
Puto and photo by @lalainejamila26
Nevertheless, trying these things got me interested in entrepreneurship and making sure I have extra income sources. Hence my writing with Omni Calculator, and some others I might discuss some time in the future. Even though I still chose to sell novelty items in my online shop today, I make sure I manage to keep great customer service to give my buyers a great experience in our transactions. For the food business...I cannot really cook. So I left it to my mom, who now manages a small food business as her extra income source this pandemic.
Left to right: Special Palabok, Filipino-style Spaghetti, My mom's Heirloom Pancit.
As always, if you've reached this part of this very long text, thank you so much, I highly appreciate your time. 😊 If you learned something or you would like to add or say anything, feel free to comment down below to keep those thoughts flowing so we can turn those ideas into reality. Until next time. 🙂