Ramalama Book Exchange
David and Kate Norton lived in an area of high unemployment - which was also an area that they loved. They had both run market stalls as a hobby over the past ten years and decided to start a second-hand business. With the assistance of NEIS and The Chisholm Institute, Ramalama Book Exchange was opened in April 2005.
"By working through the NEIS business plan, our trainers assisted us in targeting who would buy second hand goods and where the best location would be to sell our goods to our target market," said David. "We were shown how to use the general statistics in the area to work out the demographics... it also showed us where our target market was located in the local towns and helped persuade us to locate our shop in Wonthaggi, the major business centre of the South Gippsland."
"We found out the local population triples in the summer months," added Kate, "this helped us to plan our marketing and promotion to target extra sales at this time of the year."
David and Kate found that the NEIS allowance was beneficial to their business, as they managed the growth of the business by living off their payments and reinvesting the shop's turnover back into the business. This allowed them to grow the business quite quickly and meant that they didn't need to borrow money to fund growth. David and Kate are now both employed fulltime in the business and plan to employ staff this summer to help with the busiest period in the business.
In only a year and a half, they have started a new business in a country town and gone from a zero customer base and income to a self-sustaining, income-supporting and rapidly growing business. They are proof that you don't need to be in a capital city to benefit from NEIS...that the right idea (especially when backed with NEIS training to guide research to find the right location and market) will succeed.