Thinking Block

Unexpected Lessons from an Early Start in E-Commerce Recalling some old lessons from working online— lessons that helped me understand how e-commerce works. In the 10th class , I started an e-commerce store on a website. It was my first time doing freelancing . The store focused on digital goods—I used to sell subscriptions, games, and related in-game items. I created a list of items and set the prices myself. I had never worked offline or online before, and this was my first time dealing with customers. I managed everything on my own, with full support from my family. I set the prices of gigs and noticed something unusual: I could give discounts. So, what's with the DISCOUNT thing? Let’s say I had an item worth $200 and I wanted to add a discount. I could set the original price to $450 and the current price to $200 , showing around 45% discount . But it didn’t end there. I could set the “before discount” price to whatever I wanted. But that’s a different matter...

It was a normal day in my college life. I got ready and went to take the classes, as usual. There we get to know that there is going to be a book stall organized in the ground. During recess, we went there to see what was happening. There we just roamed around, chatted and saw the books from a distance, as I always did since school whenever this type of activity occurred. My friend was also with me. During this, my friend came across a book that he found interesting. Asked me if I could lend 200 rupees, which he did not have, to purchase it. And to my surprise, I had. He said I could have the book after he was done reading it. I didn't pay much attention as the books always went unnoticed. A few weeks later, we were in our academy, where we studied maths and physics, I asked if he had completed the book, and he didn't. He then took the book out of his backpack gave it to me and said, "You can have it — I couldn't finish it. I took the book with not much interest and we...