Our story
- Can you please tell me a bit about yourself?
We are a family business that was established by two entrepreneurs, Eldin and Israa, living in Hamilton.
Eldin is graduated with a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering, where Israa is graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administrator.
In addition to the mechanical engineering degree that Eldin has, he also has two other degrees in International Business Management and Supply Chain Management.
We both went to universities but when we graduated, we had no jobs that were related to engineering or to business administrations at all.
Later, Eldin used his engineering soft skills in doing designs, and Israa in dealing with business operations! Our favourite part is being able to dictate what we do and what we create.
- Can you please tell me a bit about your business and why you started it?
RazKen’s story all begins from a passionate young couple entrepreneurs who worked very hard to establish their own business in 2017 selling on social media, and it has grown since from a small home-based business to an online store selling on all social media accounts having its own website, Amazon and Etsy stores serving worldwide.
We never really had an interest in customization products, but we really enjoyed business operations growing up with families owning businesses that provide gift items, and we had an appreciation for gifts.
When we started out, we really didn’t go into it with any intention. We didn’t say we are going to be online business owners, or we didn’t consider ourselves that time as entrepreneurs.
We opened our online store in 2018, and we are thrilled to see the joy it has brought to those who have purchased and supported our work. Customers all over the world can purchase and customize their own gifts.
- What product and or service do you offer?
RazKen is specialized in personalizing merchandising gift items; such as mugs, T-shirts, pillows, masks, water bottles, travel mugs, and so many others.
Everything is handcrafted with LOVE! And The unique designs on our products are clear, vivid, and well handcrafted.
We always send mock designs of the personalized items before printing them to have our customers' approval.
Usually our processing time is within 1~4 hours of placing the order and we deliver/ship on the same day!
- Did COVID have any impact on your business? If so how? What was the solution or outcome?
Yes, we offered FREE delivery policy and minimized our processing time to 2 hours only! This helped us to overcome it!
We are lucky that our business is mobile for most of the part.
- Why did you decide to start an ecommerce website?
Our business at the beginning was established as an online business selling on social media only.
Selling on the website wasn’t like the money machine that it is now and all of a sudden, we noticed people were following us and people were commenting from all over the world asking to purchase our products.
So it wasn’t only people locally. They all were in different countries in the States, the Middle East, Europe, the UK, and we had to publish our first website early in 2018.
Currently, 70% of our business is from the website.
- Were there challenges to not having an e-commerce site to sell/promoting your business and or products? If so, what were they?
Yes, we got blocked twice on the Facebook marketplace. One of these blockages was the Christmas of 2018 season where it affected our business very badly.
Just imagen you go all the sudden form getting daily 20 orders to ZERO! At that point, we decide to have our own website and to focus on building it.
- Do you have a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program?
Yes, not only we donate a portion of our sales to non-profit organizations that bring clean drinking water to other communities world wide, but also we donate products to local communities. Our community is our bone which we always have to support by spreading love among it! Therefore, we regularly give donations to random people as a paying back to it.