My Online Bookstore

PeopleStories provides students in need with greater access to education and Sambath is one of our 120 scholarship students who is studying at grade 9 in Rolous Secondary School this year. ​

Sambath is the fourth son in his family of five boys.  His elder brothers are fishermen and working hard to provide for the families.   So how did he decide to start a business, let alone know what business to go into?  His simple yet meaningful vision, “I want to share the sources of knowledge with people.  I want to learn more about books.” 

​As we know, the digital world is not that well connected in the rural villages.  So, how did Sambath learn so much about e-commerce?  He started out by joining an online book selling group, where he got to know his business mentor Syna Kha.  She then shared her knowledge generously and even played the role of business consultant to him.   

He shared, “To make my business successful, I need to advertise.  I need to look for a place to inform my customers about my books.  I target places where there is sharing of knowledge and also places where everyone likes reading books.”
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At the age of 17, Sambath surprisingly has demonstrated a good level of entrepreneurship.  So, how does he run the business?  He explained, “When someone orders books through me, I always ask the bookshop to send them to me from Phnom Penh. It is called Norkor Book Bookstore located in the capital city of Cambodia, Phnom Penh.” ​

​With limited access to internet, we wonder who are his customers?  He said, “My customers are not just the students. They can be children or adults.  They are anyone who likes reading or searching for  new knowledge.”    

​Our curiosity continues, “Has he encountered any problems in running his business?”  He then replied openly, “I have some problems with my customers, like sometimes, the delivery was late or the books did not reach the customers or it got lost.”   Surprisingly, he counted ‘solving the problems in his business’ as something he feels happy about.  He also likes the fact that he is learning the marketing process and the running of the business.  

-It sounds like Sambath’s online book store is going well and we wonder if he has any plans to venture into something new, his down-to-earth answer, “I now try hard to study.  When I graduate, then I think again.”  Although he is on our scholarship program, he still wishes to generate income from his online bookstore and defray some of his school expenses plus helping his family financially.

In fact, he has up to 4,000 titles of books including novels, psychology, encouragement / motivation, business, dictionaries, legends, history, history of the world-famous people, education, language books (English, Korean, Thai, Chinese…) for self-learning, kids’ books (numbers, alphabets) and story books for young children.  A well-stocked book store indeed! 
 
With your help, PeopleStories School for Life scholarship program is making positive changes to students’ lives. 

Want to support students like Sambath to complete school?  Here is how: https://bit.ly/PS100Dreams202021 ​

Story written by: volunteer Bok Hoon Ong ​