YOUNG entrepreneurs Daniel Fairhead and Takondwa Maosa are finding their modern approach to business is paying dividends when it comes to the current cost of living crisis.
The business partners, both 21 and from Southend, run the online clothing store Divided London.
They do not pay for marketing and instead have their large customer base photo themselves modelling the clothes. They have a big celebrity following including footballers Caleb Chukwuemeka and Saikou Janneh and actor Cole Anderson from the Netflix series After Life.
As anonlinebusiness theyalso do not have the overheads that come with running a physical shop and they even deliver items themselves if the person lives locally.
Daniel said: “Owning an online business, as opposed to a bricks and mortar store, has many advantages. The most prominent one is the difference in expenses such a rent, additional staff, maintenance and electricity. Fortunately for online stores, websites generally require very little capital in order to stay up and running.
“I think for any person looking to start a business, ensuring you stay on top of your online presence is ridiculously important.
High streets seem to be getting quieter and phones are only becoming more popular.”
How do they keep costs down?
“Small things like dropping off local orders to reduce shipping expenses, filming and photographing all of our own social media contentinstead of hiring a videographer and photographer.
This has allowed us to cut our outgoings down without seeing any negative impact on our clothing quality,” said Daniel.
“We pride ourselves on the fact we like tomodelour clothesusing actual customers and people who like the brand to emphasise the idea of genuineness and authenticity towards being yourself, but it also happens to help us reduce costs which we are appreciative towards eachof our ‘models’for!”
Daniel explains why they manage every part of their marketing: “Since I was 12 I had an interest for photography and videography,making shortfilms and videos with my mate Noah. So it seemed right to use my passion to create contentfor Divided London.We lovemarketing ourselves as it really lets us portray the brand and the meaning behind it in the way we want.”
Visit www.dividedlondon.com and search ‘Divided London' on social media platforms.
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