Laila Odho Premjee and Fiza Amjad Khan tell us about the challenges faced and the success of their ecommerce business which helps facilitate the sale of second-hand houseware items.
1) What are the services that SoUnique.pk offers?
SoUnique is an online marketplace where sellers can list their gently used pre-owned furniture and home décor. This year, however, we have opened up our website to designers/retailers to have a storefront for their creations as well. We offer a wide range of pre-loved and brand new furniture and home accessories for Buyers. We are an end to end service offering inspection of products, logistical and listing support to clients, as well as social media marketing of your listed items.
2) How did you both come up with this business idea?
Fiza and I both enjoy redecorating our homes and we found there were very few options of disposing existing furniture in a beneficial way. In the West, second-hand furniture is a well-established e-commerce business. Hence, we came up with a business model in 2018 that would suit the Pakistani market and clientele, where we offer both buyers and sellers an anonymous platform for their preloved furniture and home décor. We officially launched our website in September 2019.
3) How does a happy client motivate you?
There are all sorts you come across in the market and quite a few stand out. When we had just started out, we got a huge order from a client residing in Hyderabad. It is clients like these who exhibit trust in you that stand out the most and that makes us incredibly motivated to keep going.
4) Why the name SoUnique.Pk in particular?
When we were in our early planning stage we wanted a name which would truly describe our business. We wanted to offer our clients a unique service and access to unique products. That’s when we decided to name our website SoUnique!
5) Could you tell us about the challenges you have faced?
The challenge for any e-commerce business is trust and rightly so. Hence, we try and make the entire transaction of buying and selling as transparent as possible. A challenge that we are struggling with so far has been a rather archaic banking system and city to city logistics both of which thwart us from scaling.
6) Could you tell us a little about your business in terms of e-commerce for pre-loved furniture?
We curate our collection which essentially means that all the products on our website fit the stringent guidelines we have set for listing. We inspect the items, which is really important to maintain the integrity and quality and the buyer gets what they see and read about on the website. We keep the identity of both our buyers and sellers confidential. Above all, the entire process of selling and buying is hassle free for our clients. Suffice it to say that the period of lockdown has seen a shift in people’s behaviour. Although e- commerce is still nascent, we have seen a change in buying and selling behavior through our website and that is certainly promising for us.
7) A few words of motivation for the generation coming up, especially for female entrepreneurs.
There is no good age to start and build on an idea that you may have so give it a go when you are ready and be fearless. Take the plunge, even if you fail you would have learnt some incredible life lessons. Pakistan’s business landscape is ready and waiting for some exciting and unique ideas to be launched. Why should women stay behind? We have some spectacular examples from our gender in Pakistan who have built their businesses from scratch and broken the glass ceiling a long time ago. We are merely trying to follow in their footsteps.
Haya Fatima Sehgal, the writer is known for her articles on cultural impact.
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