Sheops, Pakistan’s first online ‘women-only’ marketplace that provides entrepreneurship and earning opportunities to women and women-owned businesses, launched on May, 2016 at The Nest i/o. Sheops provides women a safe and hassle-free platform to buy and sell niche fashion, beauty, handmade and lifestyle products, along with artisanal food and desserts. Sheops also facilitates stay-at-home women to monetize their talents, and not only become self-reliant but also achieve a greater sense of self-identity. Guests at the launch event included model, actor and fashion designer Nadia Hussain, anchor and associate professor Huma Baqai, co-founder of Circle Sadaffe Abid, President of P@SHA Jehan Ara.
Incubated at The Nest i/o in the first cycle, Sheops started out as a Facebook group, and is now a buzzing, active community of more than 30,000 women of all ages. Nadia Patel Gangjee, the founder of Sheops, started the venture as a small WhatsApp group when she faced issues buying a cell phone online. According to Nadia, being a woman she was harassed by prank calls when she put up an ad, and that’s when she realized the need for a secure, close-knit platform where women could buy, sell and even network with like minded women without any safety issues. A therapeutic tutor and marketing professional, Nadia is strongly dedicated to the cause of women empowerment in a largely male-dominated society, where many women end up sacrificing their education and career after marriage to fulfill family commitments. The idea of Sheops is that women can sell anything – new or pre-loved – and monetize their talent as well as their closet. So far, there have been scores of women who have earned thousands at home through Sheops and have become household names because of the quality and finesse they offer. The Sheops website is simple and easy to use for everyone, and enables women to buy and sell anything in just a few clicks. Sheops also takes the ‘hassle’ out of online selling by handling everything – vetting the buyer, handling the transactions and shipping and marketing of products, so the seller can focus purely on growing her business.
Since it’s inception, Sheops has impacted many lives already and helped women create over a 100 businesses from home in a short span of time. The community currently has over 1500 business transactions taking place per month already. Going beyond a Facebook community, Sheops has now launched its online portal (https://sheops.com) where home-based women entrepreneurs and women-owned businesses will be selling their products and services. The launch event highlighted many of these success stories and focused on how Sheops has facilitated this journey.
Nadia has also been invited to represent Sheops at Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2016, hosted by President Obama, at Stanford University in Silicon Valley, by the U.S Government on a trip sponsored by their Department of State.
