How a corporate hotshot who quit her job to start selling CRYSTALS saw her sales double to $185,00 a month after she moved her stores to Instagram
A corporate worker who quit her job to start selling crystals now makes up to $185,000 a month after the COVID-19 pandemic forced her to shut her stores.
Ashley Bellino founded Stoned Crystals in Melbourne in 2015, and has since increased her brand's online sales by more than 134 per cent compared to this time last year.
The 32-year-old closed her stores in July during Melbourne's second wave, and turned her focus to her website.
Ashley Bellino founded Stoned Crystals in Melbourne in 2015, and has since increased her brand's online sales by more than 134 per cent compared to this time last year
Stoned Crystals has been thriving amid Melbourne's lockdown, with $185,000 in gross online sales during July alone
But Stoned Crystals has been thriving after making $185,000 in gross sales during July alone.
Ms Bellino began holding Instagram Live sale events six times a week, where customers could ask questions and learn about a product virtually rather than in a physical store.
Consumers can then reserve the products they want to buy and are sent a link to purchase them on the Stoned Crystals website.
'It's very different from buying from a website, because when you buy from a website it's very dry,' Ms Bellino told news.com.au.
'You see a product, you might see a description, and then you might have some questions, and then you may or may not try to get in a live chat if you've got questions about that product.
Ms Bellino said she became fascinated by crystals during a trip to China in August 2014.
She then started researching crystals and their benefits, and just months later quit her lucrative corporate job to open an online store.
Ms Bellino is now developing an app with an in-built live sales feature, and encourages other business owners to turn to social media to sell their products.
'Bricks and mortar is becoming such an expensive operation and so many of them are going out of business. You can do a lot with live sales software,' she said.
Ms Bellino said she became fascinated by crystals during a trip to China in August 2014