His family is amazed at his knack for business.
This 14-year-old boy from Devon, England, is like any other teenage boy his age except for his knack for business that earns him over £15,000 (Dh72,088 approx/ $17,121) a year. Tommy Howard built an online toy shop from his family's milking parlour and stocks 1,000 products that he ships all over the world.
As soon as Howard gets home from school at 4pm, he starts packaging and labelling toys which takes only 35 minutes time. Then he sets out on his bicycle to meet local postman Leo at the village postbox half a mile away. Howard single-handedly manages his business which involves phoning manufacturers and liaising with wholesalers. He never takes a day off and even works over the school holidays to fulfill around 70 orders a week, according to reports in Metro.co.uk.
The idea to sell toys online struck him, when his little brother put a £35 Nerf gun on his birthday list two years ago. Howard soon realised one could buy plenty of second-hand toys for less price. So, Howard set out to start his venture and sold eggs from the family farm to buy his first batch of weapons. He then reinvested the money with his pocket money and bought new stock.
After Howard sold more than 1,000 foam guns, he officially launched shop on eBay last year named after his pet pooch Oreo. His shop named 'Dog In A Box' made an impressive £6,000 profit last year by a festive surge of his best-selling product Top Trumps and paddling pools he flogged during the heatwave.
Howard from Hawkchurch, Devon, dreams of warehouse shops all over the country. "People may question my age but to that I would say "Why not?" I'm passionate and capable and that's what you need in business. I'm probably more capable than some adults. I used to find people didn't take me seriously when I first started out," Howard said.
The savvy businessman got in touch with Hasbro, who make Nerf guns. "I mentioned it to my business teacher and he said there was no point contacting them (Hasbro) as they would only sell to big companies directly," Howard said. But he was determined to not give up easily. "I said to dad 'Let's just do it, what's the worst that can happen anyway?' So that day after school I rang up Hasbro and of course they couldn't supply us directly but they gave us a list of their biggest wholesale distributors," Howard said.
He registered as a business on eBay in March 2018 and ordered in 200 different kinds of products from wholesalers. His engineer dad Charlie, 43, put up shelves in one of their converted milking parlours at their farm to store his products. Soon, the toys started flying off the shelves and now Howard stocks over 1,000 products, selling an average 10-a-day and shipping to over 70 countries.
Best-sellers on his online shop include Glove-a-Bubbles, Nerf Guns and fun-sand. While the young businessman has recently added a £249 touch screen as his top-ticket item.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
