Today we’d like to introduce you to Gentille Gohoho.
Gentille, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
It all really started in high school; I had a passion for business and the eager to learn and develop my knowledge. My professors encouraged me to pursue a degree in International Business and Management, as they felt I had the necessary qualities to become a businessman someday.
Growing up, I had the opportunity to travel and live in different countries. This developed my understanding of different cultures and improved my language skills in Portuguese, French, English and Creole.
In early 2005, while I was pursuing my business and finance degree in Paris, France; I took the opportunity to do a study abroad program in the USA at the California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, CA. It was here that I began to develop all the ideas of what I wanted to do. I went on to do an MBA in Information Technology Management, as I felt that was the missing piece I needed to start my company.
About late 2007, I had completed my research and put on all my ideas onto my business plan.
What I wanted to do, was to own an online eCommerce website that would buy and sell thousands of products to end consumers locally and globally at the most affordable prices online. Not only that, I also wanted to make it easier for consumers from developing countries to have the opportunity to consume American made products at lowest cost. From my experience travelling around the world, I noticed how expensive American brand products were selling for abroad. Retailers Internationally would at times price the product about 2 or 3 times more than the average selling price of the items in the USA.
I went on to choose the name Stock4Less.com and worked with experts to have the site designed and ready for launch. During the launch in 2009, I only had about 300 products on the site, which were mainly clothing and accessories. It took about 4 days for my first sale to come through, and after that, I kept getting about 1-2 sales on average per day.
As a recent graduate, I did not have much money to invest in the business. Therefore, I decided that I would spend a maximum of 1-2 hours per day to invest in the new business and get a full-time job to pay my bills.
I ended up working for an International Film Distribution & Licensing Company.
During my time there, I got the opportunity to learn skills such as negotiation and closing deals, building client relationship, sales and finance and finally online Video on demand creation and marketing.
About 2 years into my business, the 1-2 hours I spent per day kept being very productive. I had signed agreements with several suppliers and Stock4Less catalog had grown from the 300 products we originally started with, to about 18,000 products and averaging yearly sales of about $80,000.
In August 2015, after 5 years of working in the film distribution business I felt it was time to finally say goodbye to that industry and dedicate my full time on Stock4Less.
From the time I left in August, Stock4Less had a revenue of about $78,000 and by the end of the year, I managed to double that and ended the year with $158,000.
In 2016, my goal was to add a catalog of branded products that would bring more attention to our online store. I managed to grow the catalog to over 30,000 products and this helped improve the company’s image and tremendously increased the online traffic. At the end of 2016, the company’s revenue was over half a million.
Currently in 2017, our strategy to become one of the most affordable online shopping site continues to happen and we’ve again expanded our catalog and increased the workforce (employees from China, Laos, France and Africa). Our workforce is aligned with one of Stock4less key value, which is diversity to serve an international customer base more efficiently.
Due to our quick sales growth, outstanding shipping turnaround and great customer service, we’ve been approached by some leaders in the retailing industry such as Walmart, Sears, Newegg and others to have our products on their marketplace.
Stock4Less sales is over a million and we continue to expand day by day.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s been a smooth road but I still faced challenges from both my personal life and competition from the industry.
The main challenge at the beginning was not having enough funds to run the business when it started, thereby forcing me to get a job as I was just newly married and 2 years down the line, we had a baby and a second one followed 2 years later.
The decision to go on and do Stock4Less full time was a challenge, because I didn’t know how I would provide for my family. But few months down the road, it started to work just as planned and here I am today.
Stock4Less – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
We sell over 30,000 products which includes consumer electronics, sports & outdoor, marine items and more. Our customers know us for providing quality products at an affordable price and having a quick shipping turnaround.
We sell some refurbished top branded products and I’m happy to say we have one of the best prices online.
What sets us apart from our competitors is that we serve countries that our competitors don’t serve and still manage to sell the products at an affordable price.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
The proudest moment of my career was one of the leaders of the online retail industry reached out to us, to have our products in their marketplace.
Contact Info:
- Address: Stock4Less.com
17412 Ventura Blvd, 171
Encino, CA 91316 - Website: www.stock4less.com
- Phone: 877-96-8687
- Email: [email protected]
Image Credit:
William Springfield
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