She began with a borrowed bank card and at the moment she has a make-up e-commerce that makes thousands and thousands

Virtual Make, by Katia Caetano, focuses on providing products for resale and helping individual entrepreneurs

In 2015, marketing professional Katia Caetano was unemployed when she wanted to start a business. “I asked God for a sign about what I should do, and I started dreaming about makeup. One day, I dreamed of a voice that said ‘Virtual Make‘. When I woke up, I saw that the name was not registered at Inpi (National Institute of Industrial Property) or Instagram”, she says. On the same day, Katia formalized her name as her brand and opened social media accounts.

She borrowed her sister’s credit card, Andreia Caetano, and made a purchase of R$1,000 in makeup to resell. “I thought about setting up a website, because that way I could take care of my daughters and generate income. I took free training courses at Sebrae on the subject,” she says.

The entrepreneur sold almost nothing in the first three months of the e-commerce, at the beginning of 2016. At the time, the family income was generated by her husband, Rafael Batista, who has a sawmill.

“I used this time to improve myself. I placed the products on the Mercado Livre and made an agreement with a supplier friend to give me lipstick boxes on consignment. In the company’s fourth month, we sold more than 100 cases a day. It was crazy”, recalls Katia.

At the end of the year, realizing the movement and style of sales, she decided that Virtual Make should focus only on wholesale. The entrepreneur called her sister and husband to be partners and today the three have the same stake in the company. Katia takes care of the commercial and marketing area, Andreia is in charge of administration and HR and Batista is in charge of logistics and inventory. The company is located in Guarulhos (SP) and has 15 employees divided into three areas.

The makeup brands marketed by Virtual Make are popular, such as Macrilan, Ruby Rose, Vivai, Playboy and Fenza. The company’s main value, according to the founder, is being able to generate income and financial independence for women. “I like to hear customers say, ‘I started with a retail kit and now I have a store.’ They manage to abandon abusive relationships and leave the house after reselling”, says Caetano.

The kits for resellers, which cost around R$200, have facilities focused on individual entrepreneurship. As the businesswoman explains, the Meu Primeiro Negócios Kit, for example, comes with 40 popular products among end consumers, in addition to having a financial control spreadsheet and an e-book that teaches how to improve sales, showing suggested prices for resale.

“We put together the kits for resale looking at the most popular products and based on our customer service’s main questions, which were ‘I don’t know which items I should buy to resell’ and ‘how much should I charge per item’. The items to help entrepreneurship have to do with the difficulties I went through in the beginning, because I didn’t know how to control the entries and exits, and it is necessary to differentiate the personal finance of the company”, says the businesswoman about the guidelines that the kit gives to resellers of makeup.

The company has grown over the years. In 2020, Virtual Make earned BRL 10 million, a growth much higher than expected. The following year, due to a retraction observed in the e-commerce sector, according to Katia Caetano, the company earned R$ 4 million. The expectation for 2022 is to earn R$ 6 million.

“This retraction last year hit virtual commerce due to inflation and the reopening of physical commerce. But, currently, we see a resumption of our growth”, says Caetano.

Source: PEGN Magazine