I recently published a blog post about How I Started My Side Hustle as a Student and I mentioned that I will share the secret on how it works.
This is not a secret for some people but the customers are not seeing the big picture about this, or maybe they find it more expensive. Before the school year, I think of the idea of starting a side hustle at our boarding house.
I serve as a third party for receiving and sending money from the parents of my customers which are students who are also my target customers. There is an e-wallet in the Philippines called Gcash. It is an online wallet where you can send and receive money, top-up mobile data, and pay your bills.
It has more features including Gcrypto, Gfunds, Gloan, etc. It has more products and features to offer but since my customers are students, I often use the send and receive money and also topping up mobile data (load).
When someone sends money to my account, I have prepared cash for the customers to claim it then as for my service, they are paying around 1.5% of the amount (not fixed). Here is the summary of the service fee that I provide.
- PHP 1,000.00 has a PHP 15.00 fee
- PHP 400-500.00 has a PHP 10.00 fee
- Less than PHP 400.00 has a PHP 5.00 fee.
So, if someone sent PHP 1,300.00, I am taking PHP 20.00 for my service fee. This is a popular service business in the Philippines and as part of my strategy, I lowered the price for my fee because other stores are taking about 2% service fee.
Now, when I am running out of funds, I am using an ATM card to withdraw my money. I use a Gcash Mastercard that I bought for PHP 215.00 a year ago. It was my strategy, to use an ATM card and let the money circulate by sending and receiving money.
Through this process, I already made PHP 3,000.00+ since last year which somehow helped me to buy my wants and needs.
Now you know how I am earning money, let us discuss the expenses. In my previous post, I mentioned that I am already spending PHP 1,000.00 for the fee. For every Gcash Mastercard withdrawal, I am paying a PHP 16.00 to PHP 18.00 for every transaction.
So, always withdraw in bulk which is around PHP 5,000.00 for every withdrawal because I am saving fees instead of withdrawing PHP 1,000.00 every thousand. I know that I can lower the expenses by using the card offered by the bank.
But the problem is, I cannot get a debit card from any traditional banks because they are asking for many documents that I currently don’t have such as electric and water bills, etc. Now, since Gcash is now getting more issues, I am only using it for sending and receiving money but I am now using GoTyme and Seabank for storing my cash.
Since GoTyme has a card, it is the one that I am also using instead of Gcash.
Why you should never tell anyone your business secret?
I told myself that I would never tell anyone my secret in this side hustle because if you think about it, saving PHP 215.00 to buy a Gcash Mastercard or getting a GoTyme card for FREE will save them a lot if they are withdrawing a huge amount.
For example, if they are cashing out PHP 2,000.00, they will pay me PHP 30.00 for my service fee, but if they withdraw it to an ATM, they will only need to pay which is PHP 16.00 to PHP 18.00 for the fee.
One friend of mine asked me about the fee that I am paying for withdrawing and I will tell you, I was stopping myself not to tell them but since you can also just search for it, I just told them.
Now, there is a time when someone wants to cash out their money, this same friend told my customer that he can offer the same service with a little lower fee.
I just made a competitor; he could be more profitable in the long run because he is not also paying fees from the ATM because they have a card from the traditional bank.
Nevertheless, the same friend saw my situation where I am struggling financially more than him so he offered that I can withdraw from him where he only asks for PHP 5.00 to PHP 10.00 service fee. This is also a huge help for me to save on fees.
But now, since I am struggling financially, I don’t think I can continue the side hustle next academic year because I have no funds or capital right now. I already spent a lot on my school and I badly need the money for my OJT this summer break. For now, I am thinking of any other side hustle that I can do to provide for my needs; it is tough to be broke.
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Probably not really a big secret as you might thought since it's information they can also access if they really wanted to from other means. The right move there was telling them the truth than sow distrust over petty fees. Yes, you earned a competition from that but it's not like your service as a business can be secured as you being the only capable provider. It's still a competition of convenience now and how much the end users are willing to pay for convenience.
I had the same setup when I was studying but the difference in people knowing I charge higher than the competition is that I'm constantly unbothered whether there is a customer or not since I'm doing other side hustles, playing the same game but simultaneously on different fields. And it's not always a guarantee that the competition will always be conveniently available. Sometimes people just accept my rates because they get instant gratification a few hours earlier than wait for the competition to be available in a few hours and this at a price difference of 10 pesos (figuratively).
yep it's really not a secret especially for those people who will make an effort researching but the real customers who doesn't just pay higher.
Just like for example, for buying load of my customers, I also avoid using Gcash as I need to pay for fees (Gcash gets 1%-2%). I use Seabank instead and get 3% discount + 5-peso fee from my customer. I only use the former if the promo is not available from the latter haha.
But it will pass too. I know the platform can help you too. 😊
What platform is that?
Hive platform.😊
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