 I'm an Aishman and I've lived all my life there. I know where I can get the best quality, cheap prices, anything. Someone does it, everyone starts doing it. Hey guys, on my channel, I talk about life and business in Dubai and I'm planning to interview more interpreters to find out about how to open a business in Dubai, to share their stories. And today I have a special guest. He launched his own closing line and he'll share his story with us. But before we start, I want to tell you that we're gonna announce a giveaway and our guest has prepared a gift for you. So one of you will be the winner. I advise you to watch the full video. Stay tuned so you will not miss it out. Hi Haroon, thank you for coming today. So please, can you introduce yourself in a couple of words? Sure, my name is Haroon Jawid. I'm 24 years old. I'm a mechanical engineer. Certified fitness trainer. And I run HHS superior now. I'm from Pakistan, but I'm born and brought up here in UAE. So why did you decide to start your own closing line? So basically I used to buy a lot of clothes. So every weekend, me and my cousin used to go out. I used to buy clothes a day before that. And whenever we used to go shopping, we used to, if you're buying a shirt or jeans or whatever, we used to think like maybe this was some, produced in a different way, something like this or like that. We used to have a lot of ideas in our head. So basically after I graduated, that was the time when everyone was losing their jobs. So I couldn't actually find a job in my field that was engineering. So I was free for an year maybe. I had nothing to do for one year. That's when I started my course for fitness training. After that was done, I still had this in my head because I didn't want to work at that time. I was like, you know what, I've waited a long time. Let me just do something of my own. So this was there in my head already. So I just started. You decided to quit your fitness career? No, I'm doing my fitness. Yeah, but it's exciting. My main focus right now is on this. And what is your mission? Where do I see HSL Pell? Yeah. I see, and let's say five years, I want HSL Pell to be like a proper brand next to Zara, Brezhka, whatever in malls and stuff. Like a proper brand like people know. But do you see it like a more affordable brand? It is actually affordable. That's the good thing about us. So basically, if you see, I actually worked a lot on this before production. It took me around, let's say, four to five months around because I was trying to make different clothes, but then in affordable prices as well. So the prices are pretty affordable for the material that we're giving people. So if, for example, I'm planning to start my own fashion brand in the UAE, what are the main first steps to advice to make? So basically, I just say how I started it off. What I did was I had the plans ready already. Like I knew what I wanted to make. So I visited places for the six month process that I was talking about. Basically, I was researching about clothes, like what material clothes, where did they come from? What's the life of the material as in if it's a good material cloth or not? You get the point? Yeah. What about quality? Quality, it depends. Like mostly the clothes in Ajman are from Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan. But if you go to Dubai, it's mostly China. It's like day and night, to be honest. The stuff that you will get in Ajman, you won't get in Dubai. So it's better in Ajman? It depends on what you need, to be honest. Okay. It depends on what clothes you're looking for. Let's say shirts or suits. Normal cotton t-shirts. I recommend to go to Ajman then. Ajman. Because like I said before as well, the clothes are very famous from Bangladesh. Egypt has very nice clothes, by the way. The clothes that they make, Pakistan. And I don't think that's available in Dubai. Dubai is mostly like printed clothes and everything that you want silk and stuff. You'll get that in Dubai, where you won't find that in Ajman. So basically those six months was just me like having trial and error. Doing a research. Research, basically. To see which cloth was perfect for me, for the thing I need. So that was the start of like, if I wanna sell something, obviously, I want people to get the best quality. I don't like it. I'm sure people are not gonna like it. Exactly. So that process took time and I made sure that I get the best quality like among everything. And then once you're satisfied with it, then we're doing online basically right now. We're gonna be in a few stores by next month, inshallah, hopefully. So right now it's just online. So basically if you wanna start something, do your production, make your social media accounts, make it presentable, and then from there like, it's all about marketing at that point, to be honest, how you approach people. So you do your promotions, you get influences and basically your marketing is how it's gonna- We'll talk about marketing later. So if, for example, let's say you said you started with searching the material, what are the places in the U.E. that you can recommend people where they can find materials or their markets or shops, suppliers? You want the insights. Maybe like, maybe you don't give your own supplier, but if you have several spots. So basically there are companies in Sharjah and Dubai that if you just give your idea what you want, they make the whole thing for you. Like just give them the idea, okay, you want this, this, this, this in this material and they do the whole production themselves. But then you have places where you can get the raw materials, like just the cloth, and then you do your production according to what you want, like how do you want it stitched? And so in my head that process takes a bit longer and it's a bit hectic, but it's gonna be very cheaper for you if you do it that way. If you come- If you take the raw material yourself, you get the production yourself. It's gonna be way, way more cheaper if you want, if you get it done from the companies that I was talking about. And plus, if you get it done yourself, like you know what you're making, you know the material that you're using is top quality, like you're satisfied with it. You mean you source material yourself? Exactly, exactly. But the production of the t-shirt, let's say, you mean to hire someone and have- Basically there are, no, no, no, no, there are people like tailor shops as well. So you can just go there. We do productions as in bulk orders and you can get it however you want the design to be made, like- And do you do design yourself? I do the designing myself. Why did you learn how to draw? I was very good with drawing since I was a kid. And then when I was doing engineering, so you learn 3D softwares. So I was good with that as well. So I used to just draw stuff and then get it modeled myself and then just put it to production. And you can produce what is the minimum amount? Let's say, first you do sample, right? And then if you're satisfied, is there is any minimum number, quantity that those companies, production companies can do? It depends. Some companies, they take up to 50 pieces per order as well. But if you go to proper people who take big orders, the minimum order is going to be like 100 pieces per item, per design. So it's like minimum can be from 50 to 100 pieces. But if you want just to do, I don't know, 10, can you do 10? The thing is, even if you do 10, because sampling, they don't charge you for sampling. But if you do 10, basically how this works is, the more production you do, the cheaper it gets. So if you're making 10, it's going to be very expensive. Not the whole amount, but you get the point, like each piece is going to be very high for you. So it's better to get it in, but I don't recommend doing that to start off. Like there's no point in making something in bulk, like in hundreds or thousands of pieces. Because you don't know how the response is going to be. Yeah, you need to test. So just start off with 50, 100. So when you started, how many did you produce? I started with, so basically we started with five designs. And I started, I had around 300 pieces for each. That's a lot. That's a lot, because my idea was to, my marketing idea was to give a lot of it for free, to influences and stuff like that. So I had that in my mind. So I was like, let's just do it in bulk, let's just go for it. That's how I went. So 300 pieces per design. And I saw that you have a flower, like a rose. Yeah, yeah. Does it have like a special meaning or you just like the flower? It's just not nice. I noticed people like, in this region, they like flowers, especially roses. It's actually, it was in fashion around last year. Yeah. Like every clothing material, males, females, whatever, everyone had flowers and bouquets and everything. Yeah, yeah, flowers were everywhere. So basically that shirt was, the material is velvet. So that gold, you know, pops out. Yeah, it's very nice. And what do you think? Did you consider like sourcing materials, maybe fabrics from China? So basically, when I was about to start this, I was gonna do the production and everything from my home country, Pakistan. Because Pakistan's clothing and Bangladesh's clothing is very famous. Very famous. I wanted to do that, but unfortunately, 2020, corona happened. And it was very hard for me to travel. So then I had to do everything locally. But inshallah, in the future, that is the plan to get the production done from Pakistan. Because the clothes over there, the material is world famous. But if you compare Pakistan and China, Pakistan is better. Pakistan is better for me, to be honest. Yeah, because it's a country. It's very convenient as well for me. I'm not from Karachi. But Karachi is like an hour away from here. Yeah. So it's like very convenient. It's like me going to Abu Dhabi or Pakistan. You can go back in the day. So that's the plan for the future, inshallah, hopefully. To get production from Pakistan. Competition is very high on the market now. So how are you going to compete? See, like I started off, I said, we're doing different clothing, but in very affordable prices. But it's very generic. Like everyone is saying we have something special and unique. But the prices are still affordable. Like if you go online, our prices comparatively are like half of what people are giving you the things for. Plus, we're giving free delivery across UAE. And we do deliveries across GCC as well. But GCC is not free. It depends on where you want it. But across UAE, anywhere you want, it's free delivery. Plus, if you have any issues with the measurements or you don't like the product, easy returns, easy exchange, we don't charge anything for it. That's different from other people. And... What about the materials? Is it something special? Of course. So that it's like a velvet. It's different. It looks nice. Thank you. So basically, that's the thing. Even our normal t-shirts, the quality of the cloth, it's very different. It doesn't show in the pictures, but once you wear it, it's comfortable. It's... It's very comfortable and the fitting is very different. It's not normal t-shirt. You know the standard t-shirt sizes? It's not like that. So I had the samples that I made easily for every design. I had like five to ten different samples made because I wasn't satisfied either with the design, with the stitching, with the way it looked. Something or the other was happening. Another important question. What license do you need to run a fashion brand in the UAE? So if you're a local, if you're a GCC national, you can get the e-trade license and you can sell stuff online in stores. It doesn't matter. But if you're not GCC or local, then you have to get a proper trading license in order to sell anything you want. And you need an office as well. I think for the e-trader, you don't need... You can't have an office. No, you cannot. You can just sell online. But with the trade license, you can do whatever you want online, in store. What delivery companies can you recommend? There used to be a time when there used to be a few delivery courier companies, but now there are so many courier companies. But it's better to just have a proper international courier company because then you know they're professionals. They're not going to do something... Screw your company. So we use a Skynet courier company. You have Armex, you have, I think, Petra closed. Yeah. And as far as you know, they can also keep... You can rent a storage space as well. That's how Amazon works as well. So basically, they charge you per square feet. So then it's up to them, like you just put the stuff online on Amazon and the things already with them in their store. They do take care of the deliveries, the exchange, anything that happens. And you get your money after a month online in your bank account. Do you sell your clothes on Amazon? Well, it's going to be there by next month, inshallah, on Amazon. So what are the best ways to promote your clothes online from your experience? From my experience, influences are a very big thing right now. Even if you do paid product, paid advertisements, I think if you get the right influences, bloggers, that helps a lot. How do you find the right ones? Because personally, I faced a challenge that most big influencers here, they don't have a genuine following. Exactly, that's what I was coming to. So you should know how to know if someone has fake followers or not. Basically, I see accounts where people have 50K followers, 70K followers. And if you open their account, their photo likes are 200 to 50. Yeah, but even likes, likes because I am from social media backgrounds. I know that everything even shares. And swipe up links, everything can be bought fake. True, you can get your account verified as well. Yeah, if you even ask for analytics, you can even find fake results. I think the best way is just to do it manually and open followers. The first, I don't know, 100 and see. Exactly, exactly. Because you can see both so now. Exactly, so to get the right influences, first of all, you need to know the genuine followers. And plus, it depends on what audience you're looking for. Yeah. Like what customers you're looking for. Like if I have some designs that I think that Arabs are going to wear, I'm not going to go to an Indian influencer or Pakistani influencers because it's not going to be worth it for me. Yeah. So basically, you have to see what that influencer, what audience they have. And then approach them and talk to them about it. So you recommend influencers? I recommend influencers. What about paid advertising? Paid advertising works as well. But in my experience, I feel like if you get the right influencers, it helps a lot. Do you pay influencers or it's mainly barter? No, it's just like they get our stuff for free. Some ask for lifetime discounts. Lifetime discounts. So basically, someone actually asked me like, OK, I'll do it for you. But I want 50% off everything for the rest of my life. So it depends on people to people. Some people charge you money as well. Some people just give them free stuff and they're good with it. I see. What are your nearest plans? Are you planning to open physical stores? Are you planning to sell your clothes in other countries? Like I said, we're doing, we do all across GCC right now. And by next month, I'm in touch with a few shops in Dubai. So they're ready to keep my stuff over there. Like it's a proper thing. Because we started very recently, we started on 15th of December. Yes, so it's like one. So it's like very decent. Alhamdulillah, the way it's going on, I'm very satisfied. And I can see us expanding in a few years maybe from now. So let's see, hopefully, fingers crossed. And how do you find those shops partners that will accept your clothes and they will put it in their stores? They worked like some shops for like, they wanted a percentage of every sale. Some shops, they do this for their own advertising. So basically, I'm keeping my stuff over there. They don't want anything of it. But they just want people to come to the shop through anyone. Like if you're on the shop and I come to you, can you keep my stuff over there? You're getting people to just come to your shop through me. Yeah, so you're bringing traffic. Exactly, so they don't want anything, no money, no... Oh, that's perfect. That's the best. They don't want anything of that. Plus now, coffee shops and stuff in Dubai is kind of a trend right now. That coffee shops, they actually want influence businesses like these to come and display their products over there. They don't charge anything. So basically, it's just a coffee shop. You go there, you like something, go buy it. They don't want anything from you. It's like, it's a thing in Dubai, like everything is about aesthetic, right? Yeah. So basically, coffee shops look good with paintings and clothes and perfumes and stuff like that. And once someone does it, everyone starts doing it. So it's something like that's coming up in Dubai. Trend. And what about packaging all these boxes or shopping bags where you put all your clothes? Where can you find those production companies as well? I know you can go to Dragonmart, buy it from there. Yeah. But if you, let's say you want to sell bags and you want to put them in a nice box with a nice packaging. Yeah. So basically, there are some printing presses. You know how they make the visiting cards as well? Yeah. Some printing presses, they make bags, boxes, whatever you want. So whatever you want, they print it on it, whatever any size you want. They come in standard sizes as well. Yeah. And then if you want them custom made for you, according to your dimensions, they get that done as well. So for shipping, basically, if you sell online, it's better to produce a box. So shipping company or delivery company, they can just wrap it in their own box. And if you ask them... It doesn't make sense to produce bags. No, it doesn't. If you sell online. Actually, some career companies, the ones that I work with, if you ask them, they're going to do the boxing thing themselves. You don't have to pay for it. Oh, OK. They do everything themselves. But that's some career companies. I'm not sure if every career company does that. Thank you very much, Harun, for this information. It was very useful. And now it's time to announce the giveaway. So guys, if you want to win any item from his shop, you just need to follow certain rules. Leave a comment under this video. Like the video. Subscribe to my channel. And one winner will be chosen at random next week. So good luck and see you in the next video. Bye-bye.