Single Mum, 3 Kids, ₦500k/Month: Meet Blessing from Enugu

There's a version of this story where I make it sound easy. I'm not going to tell that version.

When my husband left in early 2024, I had three children under eight, ₦12,000 in my account, and a rented room in Enugu. I had no business experience, no savings, and no plan. What I had was a market nearby and the knowledge that children's shoes — the kind that get outgrown before they wear out — were always available secondhand at prices that made no sense given how much parents paid for them new.

The first batch

I spent ₦8,500 on 14 pairs of children's shoes from Ogbete Market. Some needed cleaning. Two needed new laces. I cleaned them all at home with my children helping, photographed each pair, and created my Luuk account that same evening.

I didn't know how to make videos. I watched three Luuk seller tutorial videos in the app and then just started. My first video was 45 seconds of me holding up a pair of size 30 school shoes, explaining they were barely worn, showing the soles, and pricing them at ₦1,800.

They sold the next morning. I cried. Not dramatically — just quietly, sitting in the kitchen before the children woke up.

Months 1–3: Building while broke

The hardest part of the first three months wasn't selling. It was reinvesting when I needed the money. After every batch sold, I had to fight the instinct to use the cash for household expenses and instead put most of it back into stock. I allowed myself 30% for living expenses and reinvested 70% every single cycle.

By month three I was turning over ₦45,000–₦60,000 a month. Still small. But stable in a way I hadn't felt in years.

The pivot that changed everything

Around month five, a buyer left a comment asking if I sold children's clothing as well as shoes. I didn't. But I went to the market the next day and bought five children's outfits to test. They sold faster than any shoes I had ever posted — faster views, faster orders, more negotiation, more repeat buyers.

I pivoted immediately. Shoes became a secondary category. Children's clothing — school uniforms, Sunday best, casual wear, all secondhand and well-sourced — became my main business. My average order value tripled.

Growing from one person to three

By month ten I was processing more orders than I could pack and ship alone while managing three children. I hired my younger sister part-time for packing. Six months later she was full-time. Last month I brought on a neighbour's daughter for delivery coordination.

I pay myself ₦150,000 a month, my sister ₦80,000, and my third team member ₦55,000. The business keeps ₦80,000–₦120,000 as working capital that gets reinvested constantly.

"I didn't start a business. I started a survival plan. The business is what it became after eighteen months of not giving up."

What Luuk specifically made possible

Logistics. I cannot overstate this. Before I found Luuk's integrated logistics options, I was taking items to the park and paying for inter-state buses manually. Now I book pick-up in the app. Items go from Enugu to Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt without me leaving my room. For a single mother of three in Enugu, this isn't a convenience — it's what makes the business geographically viable at all.

And the escrow — God bless the escrow. In my first month I was terrified of being defrauded. "What if I ship and they claim it never came?" I've had two disputes in eighteen months. Both were resolved in my favour within 18 hours because I always film myself packing with the item visible, and I share the tracking number immediately. The system works if you work with it.

Last month: ₦500,000

I crossed ₦500,000 in revenue last month for the first time. We have 847 completed orders on the account with a 4.9★ rating and zero unresolved disputes.

My oldest daughter knows what Luuk is. She sometimes helps me fold clothes for the videos. Last week she said she wants to have her own store when she's older. I told her she could start whenever she wanted — but she'd have to reinvest 70%.

She said that was too much. I told her that was exactly what I thought too, in the beginning.