Student Entrepreneurs Bootstrapping a Zero-Logistics E-Commerce Company to $19 Million: Wrist-Band.com CEO Azim Makanojiya (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: For the keyword search traffic that you were getting from Google, to convert that into an order, were you taking orders and then ordering the products from the Chinese factory?

Azim Makanojiya: At that point, order volume wasn’t high. We didn’t have a platform for them to order online at that point in 2010. We were taking orders over the phone, jotting it down on an order sheet that we created, and submit that every night. That’s how the process initially worked.

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Student Entrepreneurs Bootstrapping a Zero-Logistics E-Commerce Company to $19 Million: Wrist-Band.com CEO Azim Makanojiya (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Why that? What prompted your interest in that area specifically?

Azim Makanojiya: We were at this e-commerce conference where it all started. There was a presenter there who was about 19 years old and had started a wristband company. He talked about his company and how he did his business. All his products were made in the US. He had a huge overhead. He talked about how it’s hard for competition to come in because of the way he manufactured. All his credentials were online. He presented his financials like how much he started with and how much he built up to, and how much the demand was. >>>

Student Entrepreneurs Bootstrapping a Zero-Logistics E-Commerce Company to $19 Million: Wrist-Band.com CEO Azim Makanojiya (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What happened the first time you showed up and saw that you’re a young kid. Do they mind?

Azim Makanojiya: I was a little afraid that they would mind. I had a professional attitude from the start. I wouldn’t go in wearing jeans and a shirt but would be properly dressed in khaki pants and a polo shirt. I was trying to grow a business that I just started. I think I always had that business mentality because of my dad. He started his business here and I was involved with him as well.

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Student Entrepreneurs Bootstrapping a Zero-Logistics E-Commerce Company to $19 Million: Wrist-Band.com CEO Azim Makanojiya (Part 1)

We’re seeing a real trend of zero-logistics e-commerce businesses scaling phenomenally well. Read Azim’s experience!

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with the beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? What kind of educational path did you follow?

Azim Makanojiya:I am from India. My parents shifted from a village to Mumbai city for better opportunities. That’s where I was born. My father came to the US around 1984. My mom was still back there in India. Within two years, we came to Houston and settled down here. I was about a year old then. >>>

Men’s Fashion e-Commerce Entrepreneurs Thriving

Excerpt from my new book, From eCommerce To Web 3.0.

Most major retailers are latching on to the e-commerce trend but there is also a growing number of online men’s fashion upstarts like Combatant Gentlemen and JackThreads that are using social media channels to understand the consumer and sell effectively under their own retail brands.

Combatant Gentlemen’s strength lies in creating a brand that produces high quality clothing at an affordable cost and then effectively selling it to their target customer of young, aspiring professionals through Facebook. CEO Vishaal Melwani says, “One of the big reasons that we still, to this day, take away clients [from competitors like Men’s Warehouse] is because their messaging is incorrect. They don’t understand the pains and the trials and tribulations that our guy goes through on a daily basis.”
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Mompreneurs Love To Sell Baby Products

Excerpt from my new book, From eCommerce To Web 3.0.

The e-commerce model of business allows women entrepreneurs to have greater flexibility in their lives. That is probably why we see several mompreneurs launching home-based businesses, and some of them scale to much bigger outfits. Of particular significance are mompreneurs selling baby products online. Here are three inspiring stories of mompreneurs who used their love for babies, clothes, shopping, and sharing to create successful ecommerce ventures.

Women Love To Share

Smocked Auctions sells children’s smocks and other clothing through comment-selling on Facebook. It was started by two friends and mompreneurs, Amy Laws and Nicole Brewer. They met in 2008 while trying to get back in shape after having their first children. They had a lot in common – their sons were of the same age and they soon had little girls. They became great friends and it was in the summer of 2010 while attending a sample sale in Dallas that the idea of doing business together was born.
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Zero-Logistics eCommerce Businesses Kick Ass

Excerpt from my new book, From eCommerce To Web 3.0

A key factor for the success of an e-commerce business is the management of inventory and logistics. Especially for bootstrapping companies, this could be a major challenge. One way to work around this challenge is be a zero-logistics company. Shoplet, eComfort, and Car Part Kings have all successfully applied this method in their businesses and they surely kick ass!

Shoplet is an online retailer selling discounted office supplies. They cover 16 major categories including furniture, cleaning and break room supplies, green products, and security and safety. Their products cut across categories and feature many unconventional products that small and medium sized businesses need.
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Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Mall for Africa CEO Chris Folayan (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: There are two trends that are holding e-commerce back in India. India is getting a lot of investments right now. There is one major company that has emerged called Flipkart that is doing very well. Amazon has announced that they’re going to invest $2 billion. There are two major issues in Indian e-commerce. One is the Indian consumer does not like to pay by credit card. It’s a cash-on-delivery e-commerce market. Two is the logistics. There is no equivalent of a delivery service like UPS in India. What are the counterparts of that situation in Africa? How comfortable are people with paying online versus cash on delivery? What is going on in the logistics side of e-commerce?

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