She is one young lady who is doing well in the Hair Industry. In this Interview with Citypeople’s Oyinlola Sale, Adelola Akinyele Omobolanle the CEO of 0303 Luxe Empire tells us about her journey into the hair industry.
Now, what is the story behind the Creation of 0303 Luxe Empire?
As a enthusiast I’ve always aimed high, I always choose to pick what I presume to be the toughest, I was in the bank for 7years just before I left o said to myself building a career isn’t enough any longer how about me venture into a business as at then I wasn’t sure if which to go for, did a lot of brain storming then I came up with some ideas that I reduced to 3.
One was fashion line, I nowadays you don’t need to be a trained stylist to be in fashion line because I had a half way training in fashion designing. I thought of importing clothes or get stylist to work fir me while I do creative designs, I thought of that and questioned myself how much do I know about that and the answer was not much
Then option 2 was selling of deodorants and perfumes I did that for a while as thought of it this isn’t it, the flare wasn’t there as at the time my husband travels out of the county a lot so he does the buying direct for me.
Third option was hair business a friend try talking me out of it, she mentioned some prominent names in the industry that with all of that hmm she feared I wouldn’t be able to sustain it as competitors are high but what drive me was the fact that this is genuinely what I love to do, I’ve always been a fan of hair, a chunk of my salary do go into this a lot then, I’ve tried vendors a lot to be sincerely not all was disappointing but I see people complain a lot about this vendors. I took it upon myself to clear this notion.
Compare and Contrast the Hair Industry in Nigeria, what has changed?
Wow there’s a huge difference between hair industry of then and now. The used to be hair industry of then was the likes of expressions and the likes not everyone could afford the real human hair then but now hair vendors are everywhere making competition high which automatically reduced the hike in prices of them.
What does it take to set up a hair business like 0303 Luxe Empire, Is it Capital Intensive?
Huh Capital intensive!!!! Hair business is capital intensive but good thing you can start where you are. There are grades to thos hairs. The most important thing in the business is growth.
In the Hair Industry, many have complained about infiltration of fake products, what can be done to reduce it in the market?
Like I mentioned earlier there are so many complains on hair vendors but what I think could eradicate this is vendors been sincere, the most important thing in business isn’t about instant gain but sustainability how long do you want to be here for? When you have that drive then all things will be easy and let not ignore the fact that some of this filtrated goods are not even from the vendors here but rather from suppliers outside the country but if you have a drive you’ll definitely carefully select the best supplier to work with.
How did you manage to finance this business in it’s early days?
I started from what I could afford and I tried pre ordering getting people to trust me enough to spare their cash to pre order.
What were some of your biggest fears, when you started 0303 Luxe Empire?
My biggest fear when I started and up until now is customer complaint. To be sincere I was never afraid of losing customers but I was more afraid of the reputation of the brand I left in them
So, What are some of the challenges you face when running this business?
Some major challenges are delivery hiccups and unstable dollar rates
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