I Lost My Father Early - My Mother Had to Support Me. My Medical Supplies Business

by Srikant
(Pune, India.)

I am Srikant. I came to this city of Pune, the nearest education center to pursue my studies some two years ago. I lost my father early and my mother had to support me with her meagre earnings from a job and some income from farming on our small ancestral land. She has all along been a source of inspiration and instilled in me the ambition to complete a degree that can easily place me in a lucrative job.

The expenses relating to my fees and stay here did add to the financial strain on my mother; I could see where she was cutting corners to send me funds. As I could not manage hostel accommodation, I am sharing a rented room with three other students. This also makes me commute some 5/6 kilometers to attend classes. Most students here go for a scooter which though an investment initially, proves economical in the long run.

I took one on a monthly instalment basis. Hardly had I imagined this would prove to be an asset giving me a source of earning. I had got cured of my chronic sinus pain with homoeopathic medicines; I first look to this line of treatment for any health problems.

I will tell here how looking for a homoeopathic medicine paved the way for a small supplies activity that has greatly supported me financially.

There are a large number of chemists in the area right from where I stay down to the university department I regularly go to for my classes. My enquiries with most of these chemists met with the same reply – they didn’t have any homoeopathic medicines.

A couple of chemists suggested that if I placed an order with them with advance payment, they would arrange for the medicine in 3/4 days. This triggered an idea that it was worth trying whether picking orders from some chemists on my way to classes and making deliveries on my way back would allow a margin for me.

I really wanted to make money enough at least to pay for scooter instalments. I felt this would need some planning so that I collected orders from some 8/10 outlets, collated them and hand them over to the wholesaler so that the delivery packs were ready by afternoon.

I started in a planned way by first contacting two chemists each day to know their response. Soon, I had covered some 20 of them, 8 of whom expressed customers approached them regularly. They however could not cater to them due to the pressures with their main business of allopathic medicines.

After some 6-8 months, I got pretty set in my line of supplies without disturbing my studies. I start daily a little early, pick sheets on the designed format with details of requirements from retailers and leave them with the wholesaler. Around 4 O’clock when I get free, I pick the packets of individual orders and deliver them to the chemists even before it is evening.

The feedback I have been getting is that this regularity and assured delivery the same or the very next day has boosted customer confidence resulting in the number of orders increasing substantially. For my services, the chemists have no issues paying me 5% of the order value.

In any business, it takes time to build confidence. Now that things have stabilized, the retail outlets and the wholesalers are comfortable settling the accounts twice a month. This suits me fine as I continue to be devoting my time primarily to studies.

I find my venture giving me a cool 5000 to 7000 in Indian Rupees each month that has substantially reduced financial pressure on my mother as I am increasingly managing my expenses from the earnings so made.

My advice to all those who need to supplement their income is simple – sincerity and efficiency do pay; rather than pegging expectations too high to achieve, start with ideas of ‘small’ earnings that do give a ‘big’ support to our day to day needs.