Woman Who Built Her Online Business Selling Used Bags Now Makes N36.5m Weekly
- A 29-year-old woman who started shopping for vintage bags at a young age has made a business out of it
- Nica Yusay said her business amazes her sometimes on how fast her bags sell out before she could even think of buying new stocks
- She said the secret to her online success is working on a tight schedule, sometimes six days a week
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Nica Yusay’s online purse store amazes her with how quickly her vintage bags sell out, making the 29-year-old think there is something wrong with her website.
A frugal spender, Yusay developed the knack for finding profitable purses at half their retail prices from the time she was young, gathering her own collection of used bags over time but never believed she could make money out of the skill.
The giant leap of faith
In January last year, she took the leap of faith and spent about $15,000 on luxury bags to resell on sites like Poshmark and Depop, after she posted a video of how to bargain prices on TikTok which earned her over 10,000 followers almost instantly. The video has garnered over three million views.
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After she built interest over the course of six months, Yusay created a shopify website for her business which she calls FashioNica. Towards the end of the year, she had made over $300,000 from the side business which left no doubt about the lucrative nature of the business.
She left her $82,000 annual salary as a digital marketer in February of 2021 to face her business full-time working from home.
She said she was scared of leaving her stable job, especially after she considered how much she spent on inventory.
She told CNBC that it is not like a stable job in any way, saying if she does not sell a single bag, it means she made zero dollars that week.
Since launching her online business, she has brought in about $1 million in 2022 alone and the business earns up to $55,000 weekly on each drop.
Here is how she makes her income online.
A disciplined routine
According to Yusay, the secret to sustained sales is a strict schedule. She works six days a week which leads to drops when she releases a batch of 20 to 30 designer bags every Wednesday at 7 pm, selling for between $179 to almost $19,000 each.
Making her way up in a cutthroat market
The luxury goods secondhand market has an estimated value of $33 billion in 2021, a management consulting firm, Bain & Company said. A popular resell vendor, The RealReal said they made almost $1 billion in sales in 2021.
Yusay said she plans to stay relevant in such a harsh industry and keep on hustling by using her well-trained eye to find bags that will stand out from the pack.
She plans to add more bags every week and hire more employees and eventually move the business into its own premises.
Student makes N290.5 billion yearly creating bags she started as side business
Recall that Legit.ng reported that two years, ago MBA student, Wilglory Tanjong from Senegal, launched her bag business for fun.
Now, she sells her bags everywhere, including Nordstrom and Revolve and also got pop singer, Beyonce to endorse her bags on Instagram.
Amina Iris, as her bag business is known, has made over N290.5 billion in lifetime revenue since launching in 2020 with about N250.5 million in 2021 alone. Her company has recently earned about N41.5 million revenue every month.
Source: Legit.ng