Accounting graduate dyes her way to high growth online with eye on exports
BUILDING on her initial success producing and distributing tie-dye dresses and clothes for average revenues of Bt100,000 a month through her web page and Facebook, Rinrada Kmoll, now 37, is planning to export her products overseas with a focus on European and Asian markets.
“Most of our customers are domestic, and also foreigners who visit Lampang province. Some of our foreign buyers told their Thai friends to buy and send clothes to them after they went back home from Thailand. This inspired us to expand our products for export through social media, both Facebook and our web page, that now have 3,000 followers. Most of them also place orders to buy our products every month,” Rinrada said in a recent interview with The Nation.
Rinrada started her life in business after graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in accounting from Lampang Rajabhat University in 2009.
She started in business with her husband, Nattakrit Chanworarak, with savings of Bt30,000 “which came from work taking care of children while I studied at the university”. The couple used the money to purchase furniture and re-sell online, which generated an average income of Bt20,000 to Bt30,000 a month.
“But this business required that we lift heavy furniture, which was hard for me and my husband.”
Then in 2015, the couple purchased tie-dyed cotton clothes to sell at the Songkran festival in Lampang. “The clothes were tied before being immersed in coloured dyes to create various patterns. The products got positive feedback from the market, selling an average Bt40,000 a day. The supplier who produced the [tie-dyed clothes] could not supply enough to meet the strong demand of our customers at that time. This inspired me and my husband to study how to make them, and we decided to change our business from furniture trader to producer and distributor of tie-dyed clothes and dresses,” said Rinrada.
Three years after starting to produce and distribute tie-dyed clothes and dresses, Rinrada said that the business has succeeded in both the traditional market which distributes the products at a local market in Lampang, and also the online market with sales through Facebook and her web page.
Sales are now over Bt100,000 a month, with the market demand increasing by double digits yearly “especially the demand from foreign buyers who visit the province and need to buy more when they went back home”.
Following the strong demand in the domestic and overseas markets Rinrada borrowed from the bank, which guaranteed loans worth Bt180,000 by Thai Credit Guarantee Corporation, to expand her plant, doubling its production capacity to support business expansion for exports in 2018.
“Our products are a sales success because we limit production to quality products, because most of our customers will return to buy them again and then also promote our products to their friends. This drove our business growth to double digits yearly. We also launch a new design every year that boosts our customers’ demand and repurchases,” she said.
