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Building blocks
I developed my own Middle East e-commerce portal By Sarah Appleton
M
ini Exchange is the region’s first online marketplace for kids’ fashion. Think of a highend eBay, but with none of the hassle, crossed with an online outlet mall, and you
have Mini Exchange. Mini Exchange is something that’s never been done before in the region; we’ve built an online marketplace for parents to buy and sell new and like-new kids’ clothing,
accessories, fancy dress and school uniform, and we’ve also developed a site for brands and retailers to sell their end-of-season items. It’s simple: thousands of items, all at a discount and delivered to the doors of parents with just the click of a button. Becoming a ‘trep
So how did it all begin? I took the plunge and left the corporate world last year to focus on founding Mini Exchange and then launched the site in January of this year, which feels like a lifetime ago already! Formerly, I worked in finance and was always working for other people, advising inspiring entrepreneurs on how to grow and sell their companies, and secretly I was always envious when they left the room. I wanted to be on the other side of that table. I’ve also always loved the consignment world and got the bug for it during my university years. Seeing a similar concept to Mini Exchange work in other parts of the world coupled with the fact that there is nothing like it in the region really gave me the confidence to jump ship and try and make a success of something I’d always been very passionate about. 38
Entrepreneur
OCTOBER 2014
Leaving the security of a corporate job with steady hours and a comfortable, regular income was very hard. Now I can look back and be glad that I did it, but at the time I had no idea how it would work out or what might happen. I hadn’t had any experience of setting up my own business and definitely no experience of setting up my own business in the Middle East. The process was lots of hard work, not much sleep, lots of highs and lots of lows. I think on more than one occasion I called my family back in the UK and said, “Right, that’s it, Mini Exchange isn’t going to happen.” Perseverance is definitely key. One of the biggest challenges of setting up an e-commerce business
Seeing a similar concept to Mini Exchange work in other parts of the world coupled with the fact that there is nothing like it in the region really gave me the confidence to jump ship in the Middle East is that there are still lots of people here that are apprehensive about ordering online. When and where will the item be delivered? Will my credit card details be secure online? These are the common questions that we get from new users and although we believe that the e-commerce market is set to boom out here, it does take time to build user confidence in these areas. Because e-commerce is still in the fledgling stage, a lot of the support services are also still developing. One example? Setting up a “payment gateway” so that users can safely input credit card details is