CITY
SELLING HOME BASED COOKIES – A STUDENT'S LIFE SAVER DURING MCO
LABIS – When Malaysia was imposed with a Movement Control Order (MCO) to curb the spread of the COVID-19 virus, a student decidedly began a cookie business under her own brand and managed to get a rough total of RM10,000 throughout nine months.
Huda Hasinah, 21, also a student at Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT), said it is not easy to run her small business as a student especially during UMT’s Online Distance Learning phase. Starting her days at 8AM and finishing until after midnight around 3AM is definitely tiring.
Ganache chocolate chip cookies made by Huda Hasinah.
(Source: Huda Hanisah)
Baking is her passion. It began when Huda found a recipe on the internet and began experimenting on her own. She went through many trials and errors, but continued on to perfect her recipe to produce her current Ganache Chocolate Chip Cookies.
Huda’s strong determination to earn her own money and not depending on her family has encouraged her to start this small business. She loves to bake cakes as well. However, she found it unsuitable for her to sell cakes using an online platform. Cookies, though, are more convenient as she could easily post them out to her friends who are far away from her.
Huda expressed her gratitude as she did not expect that her small business had lasted this far, especially with continuous support from her family and friends.
During the first month of launching her own cookie brand, she managed to sell hundreds of bottles of cookies.
Huda’s total sales on shopee from July 2020 to April 2021.
(Source: Huda Hanisah)
Throughout the nine months of directing her business, she managed to get an income of almost RM10,000 with around RM7,500 total sales on Shopee and the rest came from direct sales from her house.
Even after subtracting the expenses needed for her business, she was still able to accumulate a fairly large sum of money for her personal usage.
However, every business has its own ups and downs. Running a business while still studying at the same time was not easy for her. Huda faced a lot of challenges along the way.
She used to consider stopping her business due to the amount of assignments she received and admitted that her time was not well managed.
Often, Huda cried and did briefly give up baking cookies. Even so, thinking of the overwhelming support she had as well as orders she got from her circles, it made her feel like she needed to keep baking.
Currently, Huda decides to slow down her business as she enters her fourth semester. She does not want to repeat the stress that befell her last semester as she tried coping with business and her studies at the same time.
Nevertheless, Huda is still taking orders from her customers but the pace will be moderate seeing that she has to prioritise her commitment to studying rather than her business. For her, it is okay as long as she could generate extra income as a student and could still afford everything she wanted with her own money.
To end the interview session, Huda did not forget to advise all young people out there to not give up in achieving their dreams either in studies or managing businesses.
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