Hello Everyone,
I’m Shathyan, a MBA Student and a Partner of an upcoming eCommerce Portal for selling Furnitures Online called the www.woodchunk.com.
This is basically a startup started by four students of my college including me which is still under process and we are yet to launch it online.
Why we Started ??
we as a student had a dream of becoming a Entrepreneur and we came together to start up with this idea as it fired us with some thoughts. We felt that there is two different model in market for selling products and there are,
1. Build To Stock
2. Order To Build
And the major difference in these two models were the selling cost will be highly reduced. Reason is in Build to Stock is where it includes the cost of making, developing the product and stocking it where we need to pay charges for stock, like labour, building rent, current and etc basic amenities. But in Order to Build, we don’t have any of these cost expect the cost of making it and delivering it.
So basically we had this plan and was searching for business where we can implement Order To Build in it and found furnitures as one of the prospects in it.
We also contacted some manufactures and enquired about cost of some products which was in Show room and we came to know that there were some huge difference in making cost from manufacture and selling cost in Show room as they all came under the Build To Stock model.
So we geared up with this plan on Order to Build, where customer would order the furniture and we will make and deliver where the prices will be less compared to show room prices. So we started to work on website and other things on contacting manufactures and getting the quotation of prices of different products. Now our website work is going to complete and we will launch it soon.
Fear in us 🙁
we are now inculcating a small fear whether Indian’s have a mind tendency to buy furnitures online as other products which are sold. Many of our surrounding like our parents and friends are infusing us with a thought that who will buy furnitures online where we can’t feel, touch and experience the furniture lively.
Our people mind set is like that if we are going to buy furniture, they will touch, sit and experience it which suits their comfort and then buy it. But here we are doing it online which is basically a Order to Build where they can see only images, photos of the furniture online and if they liked it, they have to order it.
The only thing will be the price will be highly lesser than the showroom price but they can;’t touch, sit and experience it.
Your Thoughts Please….!!
So I would like to have some of your thoughts on this idea, whether this model will work well or what else can be implemented to make the customer satisfied or more thrust-able to buy furnitures online. Either its negative or positive, please feel free to give your thoughts. We are ready to hear up anything and learn from it. We are just students yet and we believe it would be a learning for us.
Also guide us with some marketing strategies and promoting methods which would be useful for us.
We do have Facebook Fan Page, Just check it : www.facebook.com/woodchunk
Thank You.