It does not seem like yesterday when she was a babe in arms that needed feeding and changing every three hours. Now the little one is a bit older. She needs larger clothes and footwear. She no longer bottle fed. She can use a knife and fork and drink out of her own cup. So just what do you do with all that accumulated junk and clutter in spare rooms and in the basement. One mom has turned her clutter into cash and contributed to the hand-me-down market.
Egyptian Gazette: What is the passion that drives you?
Farah Ahmed: The wish to get rid of babyhood clutter and the need to spread awareness of garage sales in Egypt and the Arab world. I encourage other moms make smart investments while focusing on their kids needs, I help them to save money and communicate with their peers.
I wanted Baby Garage to be the first and biggest market place for children’s products in Egypt either brand new or second-hand. We also help moms who gave up their careers to start a home-based business with us.
EG: What is your background?
FA: Advertising and 14+ years experience in digital advertising across multiple leadership functions over pricing, monetization, sales, strategy and product developments in big companies.
EG: What are the problems you are solving? What is your value proposition?
FA: In Egypt, a child is born every 30 seconds! Shopping for babies can be confusing for parents. It is also costly and creates clutter around the home – all the more so as babies get older and their needs change. It is challenging for online baby retailers too due to the fast-changing consumer patterns.
EG: Tell us more about the process, users and you business model.
FA: The baby garage facilitates a parent’s shopping journey through a digital platform with multiple modules: Marketplace, Chatbot, Blog and (Discount card) modules.
At Marketplace, parents connect to buy and sell or donate kids’ supplies. It is available on App, Social, and the web. They can even make special requests to thousands of sellers through our streamlined chatbot experience, allowing them to grab thousands of products and pay securely online and get their products delivered to their doorstep.
Parents can make insightful purchase decisions based on their needs by accessing our premier content that we produce daily and make available on blog and social networks. Our content is certified by top notch subject matter experts, parents can also use our discount card/App to access exclusive offers to save even more money throughout the year.
EG: What are your main challenges
FA: Technology structure. With our unique model between e-commerce and classifieds platforms, it has been a long learning process that is yet to be pursued by empowering our stakeholders and tech enabling our ecosystem and partners. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
EG: What are your achievements and your future plans?
FA: I’ve been serving 750,000 community members. We’ve empowered thousands of mom-based businesses. We’ve sold 1200+ subscription plans, endorsed 18 national and international brands, and helped them reach 22 million monthly users across our communication channels. Our business is growing 300 per cent year on year.
By year five, we aim to hit a total of 100 million dollars gross merchandised value (GMV) exceeding 1.6 million transactions and investing aggressively in our product and customer acquisition, where we target to fulfill at least 12,000 seller subscription plans.
We focus on covering Egypt 100 per cent in 2022, and expand to Saudi Arabiaq, Kuwait and the Emirates during 2022-2026 with localized offering and content and international shipping.
EG: Do you think the entrepreneurial ecosystem is helping you
FA: Yes. Opportunities are limitless and success is out there for those who wish to work or it.
