Business Trends: Zuckerberg's Facebook helps small town entrepreneurs fuel ambitions

MUMBAI | BANGALORE: Mona Sandhu, a lecturer turned costume jewellery designer, set up a jewellery store in her home city of Karnal, Haryana, in 2006. The five-year-old store was doing well, selling about 70 pieces a week, but the limited pool of customers was stifling for the ambitious businesswoman.

On a whim, Sandhu set up a profile on Facebook at the end of last year with photographs of some of her products. To her surprise, she bagged an order the same day from a customer in California. Ten months on, Sandhu, whose social media page has been liked by 17000 visitors, is busy planning exhibitions in the US and UK.

As business on social media gains rapid acceptance, small-town entrepreneurs are securing customers from across the world. Sandhu gets over 100 orders a week mostly from customers in the US, Canada and the UK. On an average, individual customers order 5-10 pieces at a time, while a wholesale order starts at 40. "I have international recognition which has helped increase sales by 20 times since the launch of the page," says Sandhu for whom the Facebook page is the sole link with her customers.

For scores of entrepreneurs like Sandhu living in non-metros and towns with tight marketing budgets and no experience of running a commercial enterprise, Facebook has emerged as a significant marketing and sales tool. In fact, many of them are using their Facebook page as a substitute for a proprietary website. It costs nothing to set up a page, profile or group and it provides space for displaying photographs to boot.