PERTH'S boutique fashion sector can be an unforgiving place to do business.
PERTH'S boutique fashion sector can be an unforgiving place to do business.
Not only is there plenty of competition for business from a relatively small population, the city's remoteness to other markets often forces small business owners to seek out other markets in different geographical locations.
Rula Jneid opened Rayannes Boutique in Maylands in 2002 after seeing a gap in the Perth market for modest clothing for woman.
Before long she realised the business was struggling to generate sufficient sales in Perth - a market she considered too small for the niche business to remain sustainable.
"Being a Muslim, I found it very hard to find clothing in stores and boutiques that catered for women who wanted to dress modestly," Ms Jneid told WA Business News.
"That was the main push for me to start this business. I began importing small quantities of different styles of modest clothing.
"Importing our products from Lebanon and Turkey meant that the range of clothing was a lot different than what you would find in other stores and boutiques, however the prices were also a lot higher as we were competing with mass markets that had the capacity to achieve competitive pricing due to their bulk production capacity.
"We would find a lot of our customers complain about the prices, and in the end they would prefer any range that would cost less, irrespective of the difference in quality.
"But with high rents and paying the salaries of four sales assistants, the business was taking a bad turn and not making minimum returns."
While Rayannes Boutique did not have direct competitors in Perth, Ms Jneid said the business needed to grow and the most attractive option was to venture into the global marketplace.
"The most prominent impact was the loss of sales; the price of the merchandise in Lebanon and Turkey was constantly rising and when we transferred these rising costs to our customers they began to spend less and less per visit to the shop, or they would wait for sales before they would spend at all," she said.
"Instantly our sales dropped and we were forced to close the shop.
"We overcame the first problem by going internationally online, through the sales portal at Rayannesdesign.com.
"By setting up a website we managed to cut the costs of rental and sales assistants and invested a fraction of that into setting up the online shop and contracting a website administrator.
"We were instantly able to offer more competitive prices. We also utilised Google add words and other online advertising techniques to optimise the website and make it one of the top 10 in Google searches for our target key words.
"With the launch of the website, our customer base was growing internationally daily and our products were fast becoming favourites in countries such as US, the UK and Canada."
However, with the drop in the Australian dollar last year, Rayannes Boutique was again in trouble when it came to pricing.
This is where the decision to shift manufacturing to Guangzhou, China, came into play.
The business has performed well with the support of the online portal during the past two years, establishing a national wholesaler's outlet for its line of clothing in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide, and opening of a showroom in Maylands.
"Our 2009 catalogue will be ready in five weeks' time and we look forward to another exciting business year with the new range," Ms Jneid said.
