With internet boom there are coming many home makers and hobbyists who want to earn extra income by selling stuff and services online or through digital medium. Physical products range from clothes, dresses for various occasions, fashion items to hand made decorative stuff, chocolates, art & crafts and more. Products can be broadly categorised in buy-sell and make-sell. People involved in selling are house wives, local socially active ladies, hobbysist people, importers, shopkeepers. There is brick-mortar shop involved and people operate from their homes so calling them homepreneurs.
Categories
- Buy sell
- Products are purchased from manufacturer, suppliers or dealers. They are sold further to individuals. It generally includes clothes, fashion items, watches.
- Make Sell
- Product is created at home by self or by assistants. It is sold to individuals. It generally includes chocloates, cakes, decoration stuff, art & crafts items.
Methods of Purchasing
Purchase of products in buy-sell method is done in advance. Product pictures are shared using various mediums and after receiving payment for a product it is shipped or handed over to customer. This is generally in case of clothes.
In other way, product portfolio is received from manufacturer, wholesaler, dealer. Some selective pictures are shared along with price. Once payment is received then order is directly shipped from manufacturer, wholesaler or dealer to customer. Watches are generally sold like this.
Payments
Generally selling is done base on prepaid. Customer has to pay in advance to get the products. Payment is done to manufacturer/wholesaler or seller. After which item is shipped. In some cases once seller receives the payment then only he/she procures the item.
Modes of Selling
Products are generally shared as images with short description of it. There are shared online through websites or apps. Some popular online platforms are Facebook Pages, Facebook Groups, Pinterest, Indiamart product pages. Some popular chat platforms are whatsapp and hike where people create groups and sell products.
- Whatsapp groups – People create groups in whatsapp app and add known members to it. These are generally relatives, friends and neighbours. Whenever there is a new product seller share images on whatsapp groups. Interested people directly ask the price from seller. Seller can have the product in his/her inventory or can procure after order is confirmed based on product items.
- Facebook Page – Creating a page for home store is common. Share new products on self created facebook page and get people to like the page to have more sale. Add product along with images in shop section along with price and description
- Facebook Group – Share product details on other buy sell groups. Groups can be chosen based on category of products of geography
There are other platforms like kraftly, justdial, craftsvilla, shopo.in where people can list their home stores.
Orgin
Actual origin of home selling is not known. But the fact that if you are good at something then why not try it could have led people to operate from home and sell. Some products from few decades back could be pickles, extra milk, papads, milk cream etc.
Future
Why not pursue your interest and earn extra is the future for homepreneurs. If one is good at something and there is some demand that can be created for the something then the future is bright for homepreneurs. With internet, a digital helping hand is available in advertising and marketing to reach people who requires quality, creative and unique stuff. It has become easy to to showcase the products and match with the interest of buyer. A one-to-one interaction of prospective buyer is possible using these platforms to understand the requirement and suggest accordingly. Still the digital market is new for homepreneurs and there is a need for dedicated platforms for homepreneurs where they can efficiently and effectively showcase, sell, manage their products.