The Legitimate Desk
Musaib uses social networking sites for promotion and also takes orders online and delivers custom-made furniture to his customers as per their choice.
Armed with social networking skills, a 24-year-old PG student from Samboora village of Pulwama district decided to turn around his struggling family business of walnut kernels. However, soon after he found that there is no chance he could save the ‘sinking ship’, as the losses were running in lakhs of rupees, Musaib Nisar switched over to furniture business.
Fortunately, the new business aided with technology and modern marketing concepts is doing a remarkable progress.
Musaib choose to shift from the traditional family business and set up new methods and techniques to boost the sales of his furniture products. He employed the latest marketing techniques and is making full use of social media to promote the sales and business.
“I have been gaining substantially on my business front after employing the new age technology. Sales grow and outreach also expands,” he says.
A postgraduate student of environmental sciences at SP College, Srinagar, Musaib took over the abandoned reigns of his family business, a year ago from his father and within months decided about his line of action. While establishing the unit Himalayan Peaks Wood Industries, he started to promote it on Instagram and Facebook as well as used Whatsapp to have direct communication and photo sharing of products with his customers.
“Social media has helped me to share my product values with my customers. I receive most of the orders from customers via social media platform. The world is changing so we need to survive in this digital world,” he adds.
As Musaib is doing his studies and business simultaneously, he says being an active student gives him the opportunity to understand young customers and modify his business accordingly.
Besides selling day-to-day furniture, he has also introduced modular wooden kitchens along with other modular furniture and walnut wood items. He inaugurated his Himalayan Peaks Wood Industries at industrial estate Lassipora four months back and introduced a number of items like Dewan beds, Khatamband, Modular furniture, which are not easily available in the market.
With just a few months in business, Musaib’s unit has reached the monthly turnover of Rs 5 lakh. His product line has a huge price range, which varies from few thousands to lakhs depending upon the quality and type of the product.
While Musaib is yet to complete his education, he has already found a job for himself, helped his family in the business and provides employment opportunities to many.
“I will go for a full-fledged website so that my products will be a click away from my costumers and products can be delivered to them on their doorsteps,” he says.
Presently, he is planning for upgradation of his modular kitchen unit with some CAD professionals.
Musaib says that he is very optimistic and feels that in coming years many young Kashmiris will take a lead in starting their own business like he did and won’t sit back and wait for government jobs.
