São Paulo – Young entrepreneur Thaís Fernandes de Araújo, 25 years old, started to build her business when she was 15 and since then already sold to all the states in the country and to other countries, including Dubai, United Arab Emirates. From João Pessoa, Paraíba state, Araújo built a virtual company of custom gifts called Special Gifts.
The business started when she still was a high school student and, due to the lack of options in the market, decided to help a friend in creating a different gift to her boyfriend. When she realized there was a demand in this area, the Brazilian started to offer her ideas through the social network Orkut. The clients paid half the price and she manufactured the product and, after receiving the other half of the payment, sent the gift. “I was able to open a company without any investment”, she says.
Soon, the social network wasn’t able to support the size of the business and, at the end of 2007, the young entrepreneur built her own website, through which she currently sells her products. In the first years, the majority of the production came from third-parties but today she changed production to a manufacturing plant of her own. The businesswoman opened recently a manufacturing plant in João Pessoa, which sells to some clients on-site. But the majority of sales happen through the internet, which cover the whole country.
Exports started between the second and third year after the website’s opening. Besides Dubai, shipments were made to Portugal and Miami, in the United States. But Araújo would like to export more. In case the gift has a word or phrase, it can be written in English, according to her. “I’m in the process of investing in the structure to increase demand”, she says about the plant, which is not receiving any machinery and investments yet.
The Special Gifts offers approximately 70 different types of custom gifts. From mugs, cushions and picture frames with the photo of those being presented to customized flip flops with names on it, glasses with phrases, cartoon strips about the people being presented, mini dolls made of biscuit with caricatures. Almost everything can be customized with the photo or names of those being presented: beer kits, puzzles, boxes, lamps, magnets, sleep mask, among others. Currently, Araújo says she is focused in larger orders, to weddings and graduation parties. But she is still attending to individual orders via the website.
While she ran the business, she didn’t keep her studies aside. She graduated high school and went to a Product Design college at the Federal University of Paraíba at the Rio Tinto city, 80 km from the capital. Last year, the Brazilian won second place at the Business Woman National Award from the Brazilian Micro and Small Business Support Service (Sebrae) in the Individual Micro Entrepreneur category and first place in the same category in her state.
Contact:
Special Gifts
www.presentesespeciais.com
Phone and Whastsapp: +55 83 99964-3277
Email: contato@presentesespeciais.com
Skype: Presentes Especiais
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
