social media channels and online marketplaces have made it simple for women working from home to reach new audiences deliver products and receive payments tarika jain 34 started baking eggless cakes while living in switzerland with her husband and her 5yearold son this continued even after she shifted to bengaluru three years ago what started as a hobby soon turned into a regular affair after repeated requests from family and friends to bake cakes on special occasions and jain didnt give it much thought when she decided to make money in the processworking from home jain bakes and delivers customised cakes to people in bengaluru i started by making a facebook page and posting pictures on it within a year i started getting orders she says she turned it into a platform called sweet delight and runs it as a onewoman showmore and more women are choosing to turn homepreneurs homemakersturnedentrepreneurs who work from the comfort of their home and at their own time sairee chahal who is the founder at sheroes a professional growth network for women says that she sees many women now moving towards homepreneurship where they turn a skill or an idea into a small business and sometimes converting it into a fullfledged companyon our platform we saw a 52yearold homemaker starting to make handmade soaps and turning this craft into an enterprise says chahalsocial media playing a big rolejain runs her business only through facebook and whatsapp no website data from sheroes shows that as many as 2 million women homemakers are reselling lifestyle and clothing products using just whatsapp and facebookwomen entrepreneurs use these social media platforms to showcase their products which they either source locally or manufacture at a small scale the products are then marketed using facebook groups and instagram pages even payments have become easier with the advent of mobile wallets and will become even easier as the social media platforms themselves open up payment gateways something thats expected soonfacebook launched its platform called marketplace in india last month where one can buysell products within a certain radius we see an increasing number of women are using facebook community to start and grow successful businesses says ritesh mehta head of programs at facebook india south asia he said the platform provides access to new opportunities new markets and new ideas he gives the example of 27yearold kirti singh kachhawa a jaipurbased fashion designer who sells handmade sarees through her facebook page and has a global customer base she employs 1518 artisans almost 60 of my total business comes through facebook i started the page in 2012 and have grown to 126000 people organically kachhawa saysrakshita dwivedi who started recipedabba a healthy food venture attributes a large part of her business growth to the correct use of social media she started out as a blogger and through that developed a clear understanding of how she could use platforms like facebook instagram and blogs to grow her business dwivedi says