Profile: Volteire Caballero
Volteire Caballero hails from Davao, comes from a big family, the 7th of nine siblings. Life was not easy in the province because his family was not well off. He had to support himself by taking on a part-time job as a service crew in one of the well known fast food chains. He was also a working student and used his salary to augment his tuition fees and daily expenses. This was not always enough. He found himself walking the far distance from work to home because he did not have enough fare for the jeep. He was only able to finish his college course through well-meaning personal loans from mentors and even professors who believed in his potential.
Many years later, he believes in the power of giving back. One of the main reasons why he decided to start his own business is because he wanted to provide jobs for Filipinos. He knows through experience that the minimum salary required by law in the country is not enough to provide for a family. He makes sure that all his employees are happy with their pay along with benefits such as allowances and bonuses that not every employer in the Philippines provide.
After 8 years of working in the finance department of various organizations in the course of his career, he realized he wanted to venture on his own. He started his business in the personal care industry with focus on premium organic soaps. It all began with intense research into the beauty market and what Filipinos were looking for in their personal care choices. Then he reached out to a trusted a family friend and chemist who tried out various ingredients and soap components with him. After much deliberation, trial and error, and sampling among family and friends, he rented one office space in Las Pinas which also served as his stockroom, warehouse, and headquarters for Sky Cloud Trading in the early months of 2017. He was alone, initially, but that didn’t daunt him because he believed in his product. His current online bestseller Gluta Kojic Ultra Whitening Soap was also one of the first variants he tried to sell through his brick and mortar store.
Unfortunately, business was very slow. Even with advertisements in social media and word of mouth among friends, the soap barely moved. There would be one or two walk-in customers in a week and they would probably buy two or three soaps apiece. That is not even enough to pay the rent on the office space. To make matters worse, an individual pretending to be a customer who will buy in bulk, robbed him of his laptop which housed all his research and designs, along with his mobile phones with his business contacts, and other personal items in broad daylight.
Low sales together with this unfortunate robbery were almost enough to convince him to pack up and give up the business. As much as he was persistent, he was also practical. He could barely make rent and he still had to recoup his investment in having the initial batch of soaps manufactured. Around June 2017, six months since he started the business, he decided to sign up in Shopee and began to sell his products through this platform.
It was not an overnight success as people imagine while first trying out online selling through Shopee. However, the difference with his experience in offline and online selling lies in the steady increase in sales. It started out with one or two orders in a week, which became two or three orders every other day, and then increased to more orders daily. He was still active in social media but Shopee offered him so much more access to his customers such as immediate feedback, reviews, and a chance to improve his customer base and service online.
From August 2017 to November 2018, sales have not only been consistent but continued to increase through online word of mouth along with video bloggers who decided to review Sky Cloud Tradings products online. Soon, many more customers were interested not only in the Gluta Kojic Ultra Whitening Soap bestseller but also in the other new products offered by the company. Now, almost 98 percent of the business is thriving online with a steady return of 700,000 pesos to 900,000 pesos per month.
The one office space expanded to seven and he currently employs 18 individuals excluding himself in Sky Cloud Trading. He has not forgotten his first thought of putting up businesses to help out the Filipino employee and has recently opened a new restaurant one block from where he was once this close to giving up. Employing an additional 16 more staff members to run Vorashe Asian Dining & Coffee, also in Las Pinas, he hopes his new venture into the food industry will help out Filipino coffee farmers and suppliers in their quest for a steady source of income.
With all this good fortune, one might expect Volteire Caballero to delegate running his businesses to his managers and retire early in his hometown in Mindanao. But with dreams of opening the restaurant’s second branch soon and looking into expanding his online personal product sales abroad starting with South East Asia, one might even say his journey to success is just beginning.
