Durban University of Technology’s (DUT)’s Advanced diploma in Taxation Alumni, Phiwokuhle Mazibuko (24) believes that building your own business as a university student requires huge amounts of creativity, resilience and vision and it can be an extremely rewarding path.
On Wednesday, 08 June 2022, Mazibuko started a business called Classy_.Handbags as she was only selling bags for females and males. She started this business by buying 20 bags for only R1800, she had no idea on what to do with those bags then she decided to sell them. At that time, she did not know how was she going to reach her targets and how to approach those targets but she took a risk and boom look at her now, from selling 25 bags in a month to selling around 100-150 bags a month.
Mazibuko believes that starting a business is not child’s play, it requires capital injection and time. “I started my business while I was doing my advanced diploma, I had no funding but I used the little that I had in order to reach my goal of becoming a business woman. I don’t know why but I had something in my heart that was telling me that this business is going to be a success,” she said.
She then started selling these collections to people online and she is happy to say that DUT students have been very supportive towards her business as they were her first target. She added that at first it was very easy to push her business since it was the COVID-19 era, classes were held online but during the second semester it was announced that they were heading back to face-to-face classes. She found it very difficult to balance her academics and the business but it also made it became easier for her to do deliveries around DUT and its surroundings since so many people do not trust online businesses.
The response that she received from the publics triggered her to add Classy_Cxllection which is a mixture of Fast fashion clothes imported from China.
This business really helped when it came to paying for her accommodation, travel allowance, buying groceries and meeting almost all her needs as she had no other source of income and funding when she was doing her advanced diploma.
“My target audience used to be grown adults but recently, Classy_.Handbags partnered with four DUT alumni namely Sfiso Thwala, Thobani, Siyanda Buthelezi and Thabo Dimba. We then decided to expand the business by offering bags for kids, teenagers and we added a range of fashionable clothing items. My daily motivation is the qoute that reads : One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team. — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. It is never a one man show that is why I believe that working and growing together gives us an advantage in terms of our product delivery , service, couriering items, explained Mazibuko.
“Sometimes the quality of clothes that are delivered to us is not in good standards and I end up making a loss instead of making a profit”, she said giving an insight to some of her challenges.
Mazibuko shared some marketing tactics that she uses to put her business out there.
“I always try to figure new ways of advertising in order to attract people, I usually push more when it is close to certain days. Moreover, as we are living in a world with scammers, customers do not trust online businesses so, on my business social media platforms I added the reviews poll which helped to restore the customers trust. Being fashion forward really plays a huge role in running a clothing business because people like fashion and beautiful clothes,” she said.
Pictured: Phiwokuhle Mazibuko
Nomvelo Zulu
