 Welcome back to why in the morning at Y244 channel is where you can find us across all our social media handles at Michelle Ashira is where you can find me across all my social this particular interview we dive into a conversation that talks about children's clothing brand. So you and I most definitely will agree that parents especially mothers yeah they tend to go overboard highly aspirational where it comes to just choosing the right outfit for their kids you know fashion you have to be on the trend side and from head to toe head to toe to toe specifically merchandise of points but at the same time you also have to consider the price. So joining me in studio it's Catherine Jogo she's the founder of Katrina kids closet. Hi Catherine. Hello Michelle. Happy Tuesday. How are you? I'm fine thank you. So Catherine before we get into why you chose to specifically get into the kids clothing industry. So who is Catherine before she ventured into business? My name is Catherine Jogo. I am an entrepreneur that's what we've been doing since 2017 and you're happy to be in the business. Okay. Yeah. Before we ventured into the business world what was Catherine doing prior? I was I was just from campus I graduated in 2016 December 2016 and I thought I didn't do anything else from campus I look for employment but it was not forthcoming in the first few months and I thought let me try business I think this will favor me. What did you pursue back in campus? I pursued communication at public relations. Yeah. All right. So for most students and the fact that you've really just cleared school we tend to you know people insisted in looking for employment. What pushed you to the point where like now I'm ready to start something on my own especially just few months after you graduated. Four months you said? Yeah four months. What happened in campus I was doing a few I was doing small small businesses since second year. Okay. I was selling second hand items to my family students door to door hostels or that's some days in the market I would sell in the market. So I had that passion for business at some time and for there I thought maybe what happens if I don't get employment because it's possible. Absolutely. Many youths are unemployed I'm not an exception and we'll be competing for the jobs the available jobs. Very true. I'm here I've been in business I've been doing small small business I've saved a little money. What do I do? So and for the I knew I'll start a business but I didn't know each business I'll start. So that's the passion I had the passion for business from the world go from the world go and it's very nice that you pointed out that no one is special when you know when it comes to just seeking for job opportunities you're all out here different industries and when the time calls you know looking for a job you're all out there no one is special right? True. So how did you get into the kids fashion industry? In 2017 I saw there I didn't I told you I didn't know what I wanted to do but I realized parent they're struggling I could say online parent I'm looking for kids item because item I would like this can be a good business and parent they must shop for their kids so that I can I can just have a page I advertise my things and they'll buy and I realize most people want to shop online. So it started off online yeah. When we look at the our Kenyan parents I don't know about the today's I'm so sure that looking way back like a couple of years back parents were not so keen when it comes to fashion change but now towards access of social media and the influence of the the westernized from the what go the westerns just influence social media having access to see what the other countries are up to when it comes to fashion do you feel like the our Kenyan parents of the 21st century there is there's so much keen on trends when it comes to looking out for their kids and merchandise yes they are you know in our shop we get many parents they come purchase what the kids want maybe the kids have been watching a lot of cartoons parents know about this this label is nice and we have nice labeled clothes they'll come specifically saying my kid want this it's not about the parent it's about the kid mostly mostly the biggest percent it's about the kid it's not I want by this but when parents show the kids that this shop has this the kid will choose what they want the parent will come and buy yes all right so and they're very keen on quality and nice unique things all right yeah okay let's look at what the Katina kids closet the name of the business yes true what do you specialize in because we have so many other shops that sell kids clothes so what exactly do you specialize in and like most shops around maybe in town for us we do themed outfits the Marvel world and labels all right we specialize in the two say from a parent and my my my child is asking about Superman just all the movies from the marvel then you're the person to get a house for my outfits all right so when it comes when we talked about labels so maybe you could take us to that the labels the labels that we have currently in our shop we have the Louis Vuitton we have Fendi we have the Adidas yeah you just mentioned you know those are very very well known brands out here so how affordable are the merchandise the outfits the shoes how affordable are they they're quite affordable because like adidas trip is set for a boy it goes for 2500 to 3000 okay yeah okay that's that's that's okay hey our kids are putting on brand names yeah true how did you get connection and where do you actually get your your your outfits for um when i started initially when i started i started looking for stuff i started shipping from china initially in 2017 so i i i downloaded the app the alibaba app i looked for supplies i could get supplies maybe sometimes i could get bad quality stuff sometimes they could not be sent and you can't claim anywhere as long as the agent the shipping agencies we didn't receive them you can't complain after gambling for long a friend in china connected me to one specific supply and that's the supply i've been working with in china since then and i'm very specific i want good quality you know in china you can choose poor quality at a lower price and good quality at a higher price so it's you to tell the supplier i want good quality and the supplier is going to give you that and the price of the good quality the grade they go with grade so you say i want the best grade so it's sent now that's the for the china for talking there's this friend of mine i i worked with her through the journey of entrepreneurship she was just starting off uh so i connected her in china then she had a friend who connected her turkey with turkey suppliers so and she told me ah someone has connected me the turkey suppliers we can do this she sent me the contact i contacted the supplier and that's how we we began importing from turkey all right and what i picked from whatever you see there's a lot of networking involved true true so let's take me through your initial capital how much did you start with and someone who is watching this conversation and they would love to mention the same industry so how did you go about it when i started i just used 10,000 shillings uh you know with the china suppliers you they give you a minimum most minimums are 10 pieces 20 pieces it's up on you to know how many pieces you'll pick depending on your shipping agent okay because the shipping agent has a minimum weight that you're supposed to ship so you can ship two pieces 10 pieces and it's going to be lower than five cages which is the minimum for your shipping agent so i picked a few pieces and they were shipped of course they were above five cages they were shipped and that's how i started off would you say it's a profitable business it is it is kids clothes are bought every day yeah okay so how are the profit margins started back in 2017 yes let's look at because of this year with the global pandemic let's go back to 2019 yes what are the profit margins like per item uh let's look at the whole year like the whole year yeah let let me say a couple of challenges you faced while that day let me say the profit margins quite quite nice depending with what you get and if the clients want it because you can't have something that's not interesting the clients and you expect it to be but you'll have that stock and you'll send it a lower price the profit margins are quite good none of the exact figures not necessarily we just wanted to just estimate how the business looked like back in 2019 once you bring the let me say in 2019 the profit was quite business was good that's when we we were at the maybe the curve was going up up up and we made quite some good money yeah yeah especially december yeah december yeah and what a couple of highlights in this particular business that you ventured into that we look back and you say you know i don't really regret actually starting my own business passion i had passion for everything kids i just wanted to do anything kids so i felt i feel fulfilled that i'm doing what i love and it's it's bringing in something yeah yeah and for someone who's watching this and they would like to venture into the kids fashion industry what would be your advice my business starts small if you can't afford to import we have very good shops maybe initially they sell at a good price you just go there pick a few items and start off with whichever capital you have five thousand is okay you can also market online you can talk to them and and we they do that you can talk to them and then you'll be getting clients and you go for the item they're sure yeah yeah you just talk to them whichever capital you have you can start yeah okay Catherine it's been three years now down the road and i would like to find out what a couple of financial lessons that you've learned along the way discipline you have to be disciplined with business you make money you plan to reinvest don't plan to spend it all you have to be disciplined in business yes and you learn your clients one thing i tell i tell those people my friends the ones who want to venture in business i tell them don't do debts if you do debts you'll go down in business i've seen most of them go down in business you do cash and you'll be good to go a client will buy they'll buy but if it's debts no don't do that just do your stock another one will come and buy yeah you mentioned one of the financial lesson is investment yes have you done any form of investment and if so i'll probably could mention couple yeah i've done some investments but in construction with my family i'm a family lady i'm a mother of two boys together with my husband we've done some investments yeah we do it jointly we plan on how to buy land yeah all right okay so let's look at a couple of challenges that you faced along the way when it comes to the kids fashion industry oh one challenge its sizing you know most of our clients are not in Nairobi because of our online presence we have clients from all over all over Kenya and when you're sending an item to a client you have to be very sure of the sizing and the quality because some clients will get the thing the item and they'll be like ah i didn't expect it to be like this i didn't want this what is this no so you have to be very specific when you're sending to clients the sizing and the quality tell the client be specific tell the client what you bought it's good quality but it's China because some clients will see that we have a lot of things from Turkey so maybe someone will assume this one is also from Turkey but the price you know the price will be lower but they assume it's from Turkey no i'll tell you this one is is from China but good quality and then i'll tell you this one is from Turkey you'll just love it you have to be very specific if you're not they return and you want to maintain a good name so if a client returns you just change you have to accept it and change not not refund change you can change you can add some money you just agree just be nice and you agree yeah what is the having a background in public relations yeah what a form of marketing strategies that we use to just put out your business out there to the masses to a target market um i've been we have a very good online presence and then word of mouth we have clients who have referred their friends their family everyone word of mouth has worked has worked good for us and then we have a lot of return client and our customer service is top notch because you want clients to come back and they definitely do we have clients who wait for right now they're waiting for our next talk yeah yeah because you know we have good things we talk nicely to them we send things when they send their money yeah that has worked good i'd like you to give us uh we're probably a couple of tips uh you know two or three when it comes to you having a background in public relations right and how you've run the business and how it has actually uh you know promoted to to where you are in an effective way compared to if you didn't have information or a background in PR PR has helped me a lot in how it relates to clients one thing you have to keep it professional you don't go using some words on clients you have to be very specific even if a client says this you just be straight be very professional keep it professional and then the customer service talk nicely to people welcome them yeah all that has worked good for us and then marketing marketing too you have to do a lot of marketing you do you have to do a lot of marketing there's too much competition yeah in this field now you just install a business three months and expect to move no no no you don't do that it takes time it takes time patience yeah true you have to be patient all right so what does the future look like probably three five years down the road when it comes to Katina a kid's closet the future is bright we expect to expand maybe to have branches outside Nairobi in Mombasa in Akuru major cities we have clients from Mombasa from Nakuru from Kisumo so we have branches near them it will be good for them be good for them because they can just walk in and choose and like now they have to send parcel fees for us to send the altings to them all right so where you guys located and how can people find across all your social media handles we are located at Ementi house on Tombaya street Zodiac stalls stall Zedivert one all right social media handles Katina kids closet on facebook Katina kids closet on instagram okay so thank you very much Catherine Jogo for creating time to realize and taking us through children clothing brand you know about kids industry clothing industry that is we appreciate and we'll be here a couple of years down the line so that we can review right true and probably if you have new do you have new merchandise coming in yeah next week next week very good stuff next week okay so guys make sure you follow on katina kids closet across all social media handles to get more information on their new products and that's how you walk away or rather you find a good quality outfits for your young children right so make sure you stay tuned more on why in the morning i try to fit for channel is where you can find us across all our social media handles at michelle ashira is where you can find me across all my social make sure don't touch that down we'll be right back