I don’t lend money to customers. Only to regular customers who I know will pay. To trustworthy customers I provide credit. If it's somebody else who says they don’t have money, I return their vehicle.
In the future, I don't want to take a loan. I want to invest my own money. If I have the capacity to pay back a loan, I can consider it. I know whether I can pay back or not, but I will have to consider my earnings. If I earn 100 and take a loan for 500, it will be difficult for me to pay it back.
Yes, I have a loan for the shop. I had taken a CC loan of 2 lakhs rupees, and I received an amount of 1.90 lakhs for that. I am managing with that right now. No, this is not my shop; I have taken it on rent. I pay 6000 rupees monthly. The electricity bill is separate. There is a meter reading done, and we pay accordingly based on what is shown.
I took a loan from Bank of Baroda. I prefer bank loans because they are better. They are better because we will honestly work from our end, and the bank will also work honestly from their end. It is a government bank and not a private bank. There are many private banks too, but I like Bank of Baroda because it is good. They cooperate a lot.
I rejected Axis Bank's offer. Our caste is Kesharwani; we don't want to sit and eat, we want to work and eat. Even if it is 10,000 or 1 lakh, there is Shanti Puram area, which is a good public area. We have made a lodge of 42 rooms in the main Lucknow area, so we used to run both. Our monthly income is 1-1.5 lakh. We also wanted to earn through business. We will go out once a month and take the rent, depositing it in our Bank of Baroda account. Working by yourself is something different; it brings happiness and feels like we have earned it through hard work. That's why we rejected the bank's offer and started furniture work. We benefited from government schemes for our work, specifically the PMEGP scheme. The bank provided us with a loan of 25 lakh without security, and then we started our work and received a subsidy.
Yes, I have taken a loan of 2,00,000. It's still going on. Yes, it's still going on. I have taken it just now. It hasn't been a year yet. I had a lot of problems after the lockdown. My husband's business was down. I had a lot of problems. I took out a loan. With that, I was able to purchase the stock.
I took a loan to start this business because I didn't have the money. My father is the one who started this business. No, my father. He told me that I should do it. So he gave me the money first 20,000 and then 60,000. But I earned it and gave it back to him because the business was going well. My sales were good. I was doing it from home but people liked it. So my father supported me.
Yes, I had to take a loan. Sometimes people demand a lot. Suppose they demand for a lehenga and say that they will do the payment afterwards. I tell them to make the half payment. So they give me 2 to 4k but its price was 10k. My husband supports me. He tells me to take the money if I need it. When the customers pay me the money then I return it to him. I take my money with me but I have to add some more when I go to purchase the items. Even now I don't have to take a loan.
No, I don't want to open another shop. I want to renovate this one. I want to put up dummies outside. If there are a few dummies outside, then people can see it. I have thought about it. I will do all this slowly. I don't have a lot of profit. So I am moving forward slowly. It takes a lot of time to do one thing because I haven't taken anyone's support. I am doing it on my own. I don't want anyone's support. Because it's just that there are a lot of problems with borrowing money. It's in the mind that I have taken a loan. It will be fine if it will be my own money and if the sales aren’t that much or if I couldn’t sell saris. If it's someone else's loan then you have to return it at the same time. A lot of people offered me. People from Surat offered me to give me stocks. They asked me to give them 2000 per month and they will give me a stock for Rs. 2,00,000 per month. I said no. If I can't even pay you 2000 rupees a month then what will I do? So whatever I have is mine. I don't do anything that would stress me out.
Yes, regarding the loan, there is a problem that I am not able to understand: the charges that the banks have. Yes, I don't understand. The bank told me straight away that these things don't happen at the branch level. I saw a charge recently, there was a fee of one advocate, just 15 days ago. The charge is for this month only. The charge was 1500 or 1600 rupees. So I went to the manager and inquired about the charge, what this charge is for? I asked him whether it was an advocate fee. So he told me that the mortgage that you have against CC, that has a valuation every two or three years. So they don't inform us and they charge us directly, and we can't do anything about it. We have to pay it. Yes, the money was deducted. Taking a loan is not the main problem, but it's one of the problems.
First of all, I try to avoid loans because it feels good when you are getting the money, but it creates a lot of problems while returning it. Once you inject money into your business, it becomes very difficult to take that money out. So, I don't prefer taking a loan. However, if I need a certain amount of money for a specific period, I usually ask someone in my family, such as my mother or father, to borrow that money. I haven't availed any schemes like this. I have seen them, but I think they are a bit difficult and I don't have proper details about them.
Nowadays, there is government support available. When I started my business, I didn't have any funds. I took a Personal Loan (PL) for 3 lakh rupees. This means that the government has a scheme where anyone who needs money for their business can get a loan from the bank, with the government providing security. It's like we are providing security so that you can take the loan. Bank of Baroda (BOB) gave me a loan of 6 lakhs, and I also took a PL of 3 lakhs. So, in total, I received a loan of 17 lakhs from ICL.
I am the first person in my family to start a business, so I had to take more risks. I was afraid of failing, but I had faith in myself that hard work would lead to success. My family, including my late grandfather who was a railway officer, supported me. When I started, I had about 3.5 lakh rupees. I began from a small position with funds from my previous real estate job, which included a provident fund (PF) and employee leave travel (ELT) benefits. It was like having a job. Later, the Prime Minister gave me 8 lakh rupees and a credit card (CC), which I'm still using. I started with that money and my initial savings of 3-4 lakh rupees. It has been a long journey, but I'm still going strong.
My brother-in-law helped me in finding the area and providing the initial amount. We did not take any loans. The shops were less in this area, so we decided to start one. But as of now there are nearly 20 shops in this area.
When I started, I didn't have any fear or problems. I opened my own shop and it is running. We had jewels. I got the interest from a jewel loan. It has been running since then.
We can take a loan, but we can't pay it correctly. That’s why I am not taking out a loan. Because sometimes things will go well for a month and sometimes there will be nothing. If there is a function, there will be some movement. If there is no function, there won't be any movement. It is the same for school items. If the school opens, there will be some sales. Otherwise, there will be regular sales. That's why I didn't take a loan.
When I opened up the other shop, I had no stock on hand with me. At that time, I just filled up 30-40,000/- worth of stock in that shop. And today, I have around 15-16 lakhs' worth of stock in that shop. It is fully packed, and if you open it, you will see stock everywhere. I buy very little stock in loose; I buy it in bulk instead. I have so much stock with me, but I still have to bring 5 boxes from the distributor. I am planning to go and bring those boxes on Sunday. Yes, from 1 shop, I have opened up 3 shops now. I have expanded, of course. I had to take out a business loan.
Yes, I am planning to open up more shops. Now I want to open up a very big shop with four shutters at Sugat Nagar. It belongs to my mother-in-law. The shop has 4 shutters, so I am planning to set up 4 departments on the 4 shutters. One would be homeopathic, the second would be cosmetics. Below there would be 4 shutters and upstairs 2 chambers would be doctor. In one chamber meeting room and in other chamber doctor’s OPD. And there will be one waiting room for the patients. I would need 30-35 lakhs for setting up this type of business. 10 lakhs would be set up the departments and then medicine’s stock, cosmetic’s stock and other products. For arranging medicines and other stuffs I would need 10-15 lakhs. My loan EMIs would end in January and after that I will plan for the next loan.
I never felt the need to take a loan before, but now I want to borrow money. My grandad is against it, as I mentioned earlier, and he doesn't allow me to do it. Perhaps someone has deceived him in the past, someone may have borrowed money and never paid it back, that's why he refuses. I mean, I want to borrow money, but if I can find a suitable loan, I will definitely take it. I will take the loan if I want to purchase more stock, in other words, if I want to expand my business. I will get the loan from wherever the interest rate is lower, because that's what you prioritize, isn't it?
Yes, I will borrow money from a bank. If you borrow money from your family, you may consider it as a personal matter, and I will repay them gradually. However, if you borrow money from someone else, you may feel obligated to repay it no matter what. In that case, I will make a sincere effort to repay the loan.
In 5 years, I hope to have started a wholesale business where other shop owners will purchase goods from me. This is my aspiration. To achieve this, I may need to take a loan, as having a substantial inventory is necessary. Therefore, I require additional funds. Money plays a crucial role in everything. Without money, it is difficult to accomplish anything, even if you start small. Growth requires financial resources. If the business becomes very successful, I plan to open another shop. Some may see this as greed, but it is a natural desire within oneself. You can also view it as ambition or my personal wish. People may perceive me as overly ambitious, but I aim to expand further. I envision opening a shop in another area, so that the name "Ayesha" can be displayed on a banner there as well.
I consult with my wife, and we make decisions together. I don't make any decisions alone. We discuss with each other and then make a decision. On paper, I am the owner, but she mainly handles everything. For example, this is the new Canon Xerox machine that I purchased 1.5 years ago. The price was 1 lakh 20 or 30K. Before that, I had a second-hand machine from Cronic, which used to give problems. So, my wife applied for a loan, and after getting the loan, she purchased this machine. She said that when we have to buy, we will buy a new machine. At that time, I was out of station, so she made this decision on her own. She told me over the phone.
The personal loan would have less interest than a business loan. That's why I have taken 2 to 3 personal loans, and those are currently running. I would invest from there. There are many small micro finance companies, if you have solid business then they would give you to 2-3 lakhs also. Their staff boys would come and give me offer. If there is season then they would roam around. Now the weather is down so we cannot see them. They would normally come and offer for this. They would come and take the contact number. They would call you and ask you again and again that you need this or not, and when you say yes. They would take the documents.
We started this shop 10-12 years ago. It is a hardware and electricals store. I was unemployed and needed to do something. That's when I started this shop by taking a loan.
Yes, I did face difficulties in the beginning of the business. I did have financial troubles. I took a public loan. I took it from IndusInd Bank and Jana Bank. I gave some gold and took a loan. I gave some gold lying at home and took a business loan. I also took some microfinance loans. I took them from IndusInd Bank. I am still paying them off. If you borrow money from a friend, then you have to pay around that much. They might charge around 10k for a 1 lakh loan. One cannot pay that much. That is when I went in for microfinance. Modi Government has come up with many offers for small entrepreneurs. That is when I opted for microfinance. This friend works with them. I was told that I would have to pay around 12% annually. That was 10% monthly... my friend took 10% monthly, but the microfinance was 12% yearly. There is a significant difference. I took a loan and then another one to pay it off, and so on and so forth. That is how I proceeded and started my business.I have to purchase the goods. I might sell around 20k worth of goods but have to purchase 25k of goods. Where would I get the remaining amount? That is when I have to take a loan. As and when I sell, I pay it off. I have one payment that occurs weekly and one that occurs monthly.
I manage credit with vendors like I told you that they write it down and then pay it off via small microfinance loans. I pay off the loans one by one. I have to pay off the vendors before I take the next batch of goods. I get a certain credit period from them, so I make my purchases there. They provide the goods even if I don't have cash with me. I get the goods on credit and give them cash when I receive it. I might make a partial payment. for example, I take goods for 50k and give them only 10k. They provide me credit for about 40k. Then I take a microfinance loan and clear their funds. That way, I might get more goods. perhaps 1 lakh more. I write my inventory down in a book. I write down how much I owe, the goods I have and so on and so forth.
I keep a record of the business done through PhonePe and Google Pay. I have both. I have my personal savings account. I also have a loan account, which was given to me. I had taken a loan from this Finance. They had given it to me free of cost. They said that it would aid my business.
Our sales go up on Sundays, once a week. We do business on credit, and when we receive the money, the business goes well. The rest of the time, we keep waiting. In the morning, we have good sales from vegetables. Some people receive weekly wages, so they repay our credit and then purchase items. The business is good on that day. However, on the other days, the sales are very low. We receive back whatever loans we have given. They repay on Sundays. They keep buying things daily. We maintain accounts on a card. They give us money on Sundays or Saturday night. Then the next week, we start a fresh account.At least 25 of them take loans. Both of us maintain accounts. Some of them trust us, so we maintain their accounts. Some of them, whom we trust, ask to maintain their own accounts. The rest of them are people who pass by the shop.
We also take loans from outside and buy things. We take loans from financial institutions. We usually pay them daily. We have taken a lot of loans. It is a minimum of 1000 rupees daily. We have even repaid 4000 rupees in a day. Once the money is paid, we get things from the shop. Finance people help us with loans because we repay them immediately. We also don't want to take loans from them, but when there is a requirement, we have no choice.
We have cards to note down the credit amount. If we are paying 500 to the financers, we put the date and make a note of it on the card.