STORIES

Age does not matter to start any startup. And it is quite evident in the Forbes, List of achievers that comprises 45 Indian entrepreneurs under the age of 30. This is a successful story of 22 year old Delhi based Saman Pahwa, who despite the disapproval of his parents, close to be an entrepreneur.

While Saman student at Delhi’s Sri Guru Gobind Singh Collage of Commerce, He realized that the gift market is limited. So he started online handmade junction in April 2015, allows Users to order personalized, handmade and customer gifts online and have it delivered to their doorsteps.

Initial Handmade Junction sold their products through their Facebook page. Moreover, putting up stalls at across Delhi University was another option to expand their customer base. The positive reviews and reactions towards the products strengthened Saman’s determination to take Handmade Junction to the next Level.

Saman quit his multinational company job and started Handmade Junction. Because of the dearth of technology expertise, Saman decided to run the Handmade Junction website on e-commerce platform Zepo. Zepo allows businesses to setup stores online and offers everything from integrated payment gateways to marketing support. FedEx has tied up to offer logistic support to all the online stores.

Simran Jeet Singh, Saman’s brother also joined the business in April 2015 and they have invested Rs 1 lakh as seed capital. Simran, who also works in a FMCG company in Gurgaon, looks after the Digital Marketing, SEO and New Product Ideas at Handmade Junction.

A journey towards the junction – Saman Pahwa

The product range of Handmade Junction includes photo lamps, unique LED Collage (which contains more than 200 pictures), customized inside cover of dairy milk silk, temptation box with vodka and unique scroll card. The products are priced between Rs 300 and 3900 and Handmade Junction gains a margin of 35-40 percent.

Customers are asked to email customized messages and images once they place an order on the website. Moreover, the team also interacts with the customers to understand their requirements and designs. Once the product is prepared, a draft is shared with the customer and the products are only delivered after they receive a confirmation from the customer.

“We have in-house carpenter who make wooden base for our lamps. We also import acrylic pipes from China and we have tied-up with a Canon franchisee store for printing,” says Saman.

The startup has tied up with seven to eight vendors based out of Delhi-NCR to procure the materials. And for Digital Printing and Laser Engraving, they have two more vendors.

Handmade Junction has a team of five people, including the Saman and Simran. Kritika Arora looks after the designing of the products, Ram Chander is for packing, and Sunil Kumar takes of the local delivery of the products. Handmade Junction is also sold our products via Giveter, GiftingNation, Giftsvilla, Craftsvilla and Shopo App, Which generates 3.6 per cent of the total number of sales.

Total Numbers of Delivery – Saman Pahwa

Last one year, Handmade Junction has delivered more than 4,000 orders. Handmade Junction has currently more than 9,000 to 10,000 unique visitors per month. It has achieved Rs 35 lac annually revenue. Apart from Delhi, Handmade Junction supplies the product from Chennai, Bangaluru and Hedrabad.

Now Gift Market – Saman Pahwa

Now a day gifting market in India is estimated to be $40 to $45 billion, According to a report by Technopak, Gifting marketing is growing every year 20 to 40%. Flaberry.com, RedBrown, BuddyGifting, PictureBite, Indibni are few of them who are in the tug of war to stay ahead of the competition in the personalized gifting space.

Handmade Junction wants to generate 1 lac visitors per month and expand the product range with personalized gifts, unique gifting for kids and their parents in few years. They want to generate new baby in the personalized gifting space, the startup managed to stay profitable in terms of unit economics. Handmade Junction launched our app very soon, which will be launched soon, will add credibility to the growth trajectory, where users can send requests by sharing images via Pinterest, Instagram, Etsy and more.

Website:-http://www.handmadejunction.in/