Young female entrepreneur breaks into the fashion business amid the pandemic
At the wake of the pandemic most South Africans were doomed due to job losses and business meltdowns, and this forced many to rethink the way they do business. Adapting to the new status also meant coming up with creative ways to create alternative income streams.
The story of how the young female entrepreneur, Tshegofatso Mphahlele, 24, positioned her clothing business to ensure that it survived the pandemic, is inspiring.
The 24-year-old and recent graduate from the LISOF (London International School of Fashion), began selling fashionable clothes way before the lockdown, however the lockdown caused her to migrate her business from a physical platform to online.
On her instagram posts, Tshego often reveals how she has always been keen to own an online clothing business. “I strongly felt that I could not wait for the right time and I just needed to start, so I did”, she wrote. She says that taking her business to an online platform made sense to her even before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. “Although the move was slow Covid19 was the push that most selling businesses needed in order to start going online”, she said in her instagram stories.
Anyone from anywhere with access to the internet and a computer can start a drop-shipping business as most of the e-commerce platforms such as Shopify and Amazon offer free training to start, to grow and manage a business. You do not need to have your own items to sell as there are suppliers on the database of the e-commerce platforms which you can choose from, and you do not need to handle customer inquiries or the shipping tasks as most processes are pre-structured.
Just like any other business, there are challenges, according to the fashion graduate. “Setting up a website and interconnecting all of the social media pages for the business can be challenging plus setting up the marketing side of the business which is getting people to follow the business pages”, she said.
There are proverbial money challenges such as paying someone to set up the website for you if you cannot do it yourself. However, if you have basic knowledge of setting up websites, by following the instructions the free online training offered by the e-commerce businesses, you can do it yourself.
However, life has not always been rosy for the young woman who hails from gaMphahlele village near Polokwane. When she lost her mother at a young age, Tshego had to play the role of a mother and a sister to her younger siblings, facing financial challenges while her father was away trying to make ends meet. In one of her Live Facebook videos she tells of the financial struggles she faced while trying to get into a tertiary institution.
In one Instagram post she gushed about being a show stopper at a fashion show that she had attended. She captioned: “You won’t believe it if I told you I was the show-stopper”, to which some of her followers responded:
@just_pontsho :I totally believe you 😍😍😍😍
@Noko.mahoai commented: I’m glad you posted anyway sis❤️ You look good👌 That bag bangs! Where did you buy it?
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