Before we could purchase ads on Instagram, I ventured into e-commerce using Instagram, then Shopify (now closed) and reached out to 12,700 fans worldwide, with over 260 reviews in 2 years. All aspects of the e-commerce, including branding, operations, partnerships, sales and marketing, were handled by me. Other than selling online, I also set up stores at *SCAPE's flea markets that garnered overwhelming responses where some items were sold out within 2 hours and established rapport with overseas suppliers and over 1000 customers globally.

 

The success of this online business was attributed to the holographic trend, specifically of clutches. The quality of holographic products that other shops were selling, albeit cheap, were of poor quality. Hence, I saw the opportunity to fill this gap and branded shopinthewest as the go-to store for everything holographic by acquiring over 90% of market share in the sale of holographic products with cheap yet high quality products. Even the business card and sticker were holographic.

 

However, entrepreneurship is not just about identifying the gaps and trends in the market and the effort put in to constantly think of and source for new and exclusive products to sell. Luck played a huge role too. I was fortunate enough to find a supplier, whom I established great rapport with, who would exclusively sell the items at a lower price and also provided exclusive customisation of the clutches to fit A4 papers, which was another gap identified.

​

Link to Instagram store (now inactive) here:

​