How do you balance family and
business?
S: I'll be honest and say that it's
probably the toughest part of this job.
I never want to comprise the attention
I give to my family, the whole reason
we run a business from home is to be
closer to family, because that's what's
most important. It's a lot of relying on
Allah to make it easy. I aim to get
most of my work done while the kids
are at school and in the afternoons,
so I can give them more attention. My
husband is also a big help, his
understanding and support makes it
much easier.
Do you have a 5 year plan?
J: We have an idea of where we would
like to be, but our actual plan is very
flexible. We have to keep open to
adapting to new opportunities and ideas.
We've noticed that there's a lot of home
run business that have great products
but struggle with the time and resources
to be able to market and handle sales.
It's that whole concept of them being too
busy working in the business that they
can't work on the business, so we'd like
to take that on from them.
They'll have more time to focus on their
product offering. We really want to grow
beyond where we are now, in terms of
what we offer customers, by adding more
brands as well as product ranges. We
recently opened up to International
Shipping and see ourselves becoming
the hub of Modest Fashion for Southern
Africa.
Being known as one of the first
online modest wear brands how do
you handle knock offs?
J: I feel like we provide something
that none of the other online stores
do. We try to carry a variety of
clothing to form a sort of 'one-stop
shop'. We've got casual, formal,
active wear and we've recently
added a range of prayer items too.
Alhamdulillah, people who have
bought with us before appreciate the
effort we put in and become loyal
customers. Which is part of the
reason why we've est ablished a
loyalty points system for our online
customers. In the end, people can
attempt to replicate a product
offering but not the service or brand
experience.