A LOCAL entrepreneur, Eunice Kelivani has shifted from manual to digital marketing and she is enjoying the benefits from this new marketing platform.
Kelivani opted for digital marketing after seeing the rise in onlie marketing and its many positive impacts on users.
She spoke to Solomon Star in an interview last week in the BNice Café at the Anthony Saru Building in Honiara during the launch of the United States (US) Government-funded Academy for Women Entrepreneurs (AWE).
Kelivani, who operated multiple businesses in the past, has taken the step of exploring the marketing of her products on the digital space, which she said gives her a greater advantage in robustly growing her business.
Kelivani, who hails from Alea Village in Shortland Islands in Western Province, has been enthusiastic in running small businesses throughout her life.
She is currently the Managing Director of Jeck Digital Solution Limited.
She provides M-SELEN services in the Shortland Islands and also runs a poultry and food catering.
Kelivani said, she used to manually market her products and her sales were quite slow.
Kelivani also does M-SELEN services in the Shortland Islands.
“My business is I do online marketing and online logistics.
“By marketing products of my clients online; I also facilitate their products to reach the target customers.
“Beside that business, I also do M-SELEN services of Our Telekom to my people in the Shortland Islands.
“Beside that I do Poultry business, food catering for organisations that want me to provide catering for them,” said Kelivani.
Kelivani said in the past she did retail but later she discovered that online marketing is the best because everyone shifts from manual buying to digital buying via internet services.
One thing that she wants to shift to digital is because of cash handling.
“Cash handling is very important but now it is very risky because now you cannot trust even your trusted friends to market for you because he/she might not handle your cash properly in a real good balance that you want.
“I think it is better for me to do online marketing via money transfers than manually as I have done in the past,” said Kelivani.
She explained that in her business she has to promote local products by posting them via social media like Facebook and she usually checks her clientele networking group which includes people in Solomon Islands and the wider Pacific region.
When her customers want certain products, she will connect them to the right service providers online to send the products to her customers.
She has been doing this business for two years now.
Her other businesses are a retail shop, poultry farming and catering.
Kelivani was excited that she was introduced to AWE, which supports enterprising women in 100 countries, including Solomon Islands, by providing business courses to improve and grow their businesses.
This initiative was virtually launched from Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea (PNG), by the US Ambassador to PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, Ann Marie Yastishock and the first Solomon Islands cohort consisting of 33 women joined the US Embassy Mission officials in Honiara for the launching.
“I got connected to the AWE Academy online after being introduced to me by the Sunday Isles Media.
“I really hope that my attendance of this AWE training will help me boost my business to help my family and community.
“I thank the US Embassy in Solomon Islands for offering this opportunity to me and other women in Solomon Islands.
“We are really struggling to survive and to grow our small businesses in the country so AWE has given us an opportunity to improve and grow our business,” Kelivani said.
AWE gives enterprising women the knowledge, networks, and access they need to launch and scale successful businesses.
Through AWE, participants will learn core business skills and then get together as a class to discuss the material with experienced implementers, local mentors and US Exchange Alumni to help them and their business grow.
Partnerships with local Non-Government Organizations, universities and chamber of commerce offer women the opportunity to amplify their newly learned business skills and networking with other businesspeople through speed mentoring, pitch competitions and entrepreneurship fairs.
By giving women tools and the confidence they need, the AWE program is generating income and creating jobs in women-led businesses, driving local prosperity in more than 100 countries, including Solomon Islands.
By LACHLAN SHYVES EDDIE
Solomon Star, Honiara
