Business plan for motle

motle means beautiful in sisotho and we believe that this single word encompasses what the African fashion perspective is about. From the colourful Ankara fabric designs made in Accra to jewelry made in Ulundi by a Zulu elderly woman, the essence of the 21^st century afro-euro centric view of all things fashion and beauty are simply beautiful. The aim of starting a company in the fashion and beauty industry was birthed from the need to highlight and bring exposure to Africa’s under rated fashion industry, whether from the view one has as an active participant in the form of designers to the view that everyday individuals on the African streets have about their afro-euro centric fashion and beauty identities. The founders of motle are the brother and sister duo, Stembile and Boris Brian Mukwambo.

As siblings, they both have always had a love for all things fashion, artistic and business minded. Boris Brian being an artist and a holder of a Bachelor of Science [Psychology] degree from the UKZN Howard College campus approaches all things with the artistic eye of one who applies psychology to the need for buyers to fulfill both their social and emotional desires when they decide to make a purchase. Thus Boris Brian comes with the skill of being able to tap into the implicit egotism of each customer that comes in contact with motle. With that tool, he brings to the table the psychology behind why buyers follow trends, why they desire some trends and not others and consequently the symptoms of that mentality in the buyer which is to purchase or not purchase. We believe that his ability to put science [psychology] as a means for us to gather customer intelligence, will enable us to fully understand our customer segments, to be able to provide them with the solutions they need and even surpass them as well as know what will sell and what will not, based on their unique preferences as a demographic as well as a psychographic group. Having the right customer intelligence will translate in better customer relations, good customer retention figures, higher sales and thus higher profits from a growing brand.

Stembile Mukwambo holds a Bachelors in Commerce [Finance] degree from the UKZN Westville campus. The many modules that she took as part of her degree such as Commercial Law, Business Enterprise Law, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Micro and Macro Economics as well as Financial Reporting, equipped her with the backbone on how to run a small to medium business, especially for a South African landscape. Her choice of degree came from her passion of being an entrepreneur and of creating jobs especially in a country with a 25% unemployment rate that stems from structural unemployment. Stembile saw the niche in the African fashion industry and the desire for everyday people to know and wear clothing made by African fashion designers as well as the designers’ need for exposure on their continent. These two industry needs brought forth the birth of motle.

PRESENT PERIOD

Presently, all the day to day running of the business which is currently just the online magazine is done by Stembile Mukwambo who is its Editor in Chief. She is responsible for all the content material for the magazine and the Social media content. She writes 7 articles per week that she posts on to the site which range from Beauty techniques to healthy meals’ recipes. She then posts daily on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook various beauty and fashion tips, work/casual/street wear outfit suggestions as well as daily motivations. This helps in brand outreach and growth as well as building strong relationships through interaction with our target market.

SHORT-LONG TERM

JOB TITLE	JOB DESCRPTION	STAFF MEMEBR
MANAGEMENT TEAM
MANAGING DIRECTOR	Manages the day to day issues of the business	STEMBILE MUKWAMBO
MARKETING OFFICER	In charge of marketing and promoting the brand in and outside South Africa through the implementation of the motle marketing strategy.	TBR
EDITOR IN CHIEF	Final responsibility for all operations and policies concerning the magazine as well as for the blog and nawty korner categories of the magazine.	STEMBILE MUKWAMBO
CHIEF IT OFFICER	Responsible for the decision making needed for the smooth operation of the motle app and sites. Responsible for website and app development and maintenance.	BORIS BRIAN MUKWMABO
OPERATIONS OFFICER	Responsible for the acquisition and delivery of inventory for the motle online store.	TBR
MOTLE ONLINE MAGAZINE
FASHION CORESPONDENT	Responsible for the fashion category and motle loves category on the magazine	TBR
BEAUTY CORESPONDENT	Responsible for the beauty and motle loves category on the magazine	TBR
HEALTH&FITNESS CORESPONDENT	Responsible for the health and fitness category on the magazine	TBR
WEDDING CORESPONDENT	Responsible for the wedding category on the magazine	TBR
MOTLE ONLINE STORE
WOMEN’S CLOTHING DESIGNER	Designs the women’s wear for the motle clothing line	TBR
MEN’S CLOTHING DESIGNER	Designs men’s wear for the motle clothing line	TBR
SPORTSWEAR DESIGNER	Designs sportswear for the motle clothing line	TBR
CRAFTSMAN[BAGS]	Designs bags and leather accessories for the motle clothing line	TBR
SHOE DESIGNER	Designs male and female shoes for the motle clothing line	TBR
ACCESORIES DESIGNER	Designs accessories for the motle clothing line	TBR
2 *PROCUREMENT OFFICER	Procures clothing, shoes and accessories from whole sellers for the motle online store as well as be in charge of the deliveries to customers	TBR
25* CLOTHING FACTORY STAFF	Responsible for garment/shoe/bag/accessories construction for the motle clothing line.	TBR

In the short to mid-term we will have a virtual office where all the staff will work from home until we are able to afford our own offices. We will stock all procured merchandise initially at the founder’s place of residence until we are able to afford a warehouse for storage. The motle clothing factory is a mid-term goal that we shall fulfill when we are able to afford to so that we roll out our clothing line with the creative help of our in-house designers.

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

Motle is dedicated to providing world class fashion, beauty and lifestyle services whether it is from our online magazine or from our online store. We offer the following services and products:

1. 
   THE motle ONLINE FASHION, BEAUTY AND LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE [www.motle.durban]
   

The emphasis is on providing our readers with content that is both informative and practical. With each post that we have on the magazine be it a bridal wear post, a make-up video tutorial on how to highlight and contour for instance, we focus on 3 main principles which are :

• 
  Know – from our posts, our readers must leave the site well informed about the topic they were interested enough to read about. It is about giving our readers information that will give them value for each second they spend on the site. To inform and thus increase the knowledge of our readers about fashion, beauty and lifestyle means that we are providing a service that will leave our readers richer, more knowledgeable and satisfied than before they visited the site, which is our aim.
  
• 
  Go – we strongly believe in link streaming. If we can link with other blogs and refer them to enrich our readers’ knowledge on any topic or refer them to a site where they can buy something we believe that we would have enriched their experience on motle. The benefits of link streaming are very numerous especially among bloggers. Not only does it enrich the reader’s experience but it has been known to increase the referring as well as the referred sites readership.
  
• 
  Do - readers now are looking for a site that shows them the practical side of things. This is why we see such a rise in DIY tutorials and HOW-TO videos on social media and YOU TUBE. When readers are looking for a solution to a problem, from how to style their box braids to exercises on how to lose belly fat, they respond better to an illustration. We, at motle , believe that illustration is the best way forward. If we are able to show them how it is done, through quick and fun videos, there will be a higher referral rate and a lower bounce rate of the site.
  

A lower bounce rate will lead to a higher site conversion rate which translates to a higher number of subscribers to the site and our social networks. This means that we will have a high enough number of readers to be able to attract advertisers.

2. 
   ADVERTISING SPACE ON THE WEBSITE
   

As we build our audience, we are aware of the fact that other businesses will have at least one thing in common with us, which is our target market. The most important age group to advertisers is the age group between 16 to 50 year olds. This group, is banked, has a steady flow of income coming into their house-holds, is part of the labour force and thus is the one that is making the purchases. In this group we also focus on the ones in LSM 5 to LSM 10. These individuals have access to credit, have a substantial amount of disposable income and they frequent retailers as they have the funds to spend. This group is our target market and we believe they are also the target market of businesses that wish to advertise on our magazine. With the increase in audience numbers, we will be the perfect platform for businesses to advertise their products on. With 37 categories that span from the latest fashion show to sex toys, we believe that different businesses in different sectors can be able to communicate to their target market amongst our readers, why their products should be part of our readers’ daily lives. We have compiled a MOTLE RATE card that is competitively priced so that our clients get value for their money. The advertising space will be available on www.motle.durban, our online magazine, www.stylebymotle.durban, our online store and on the motle app.

3. 
   THE motle CLOTHING LINE
   

At motle , we have a very unique view on fashion, which is of an ever evolving fashion personality. We believe that just like a person’s character and personality has different facets, the same applies to their fashion preferences. A person may have multi fashion personalities or just one. They may be Bohemian on casual Sundays and preppy on manic Mondays or they may dress according to their particular mood for that day. To cater to these fashion personality needs, we will launch a motle clothing line in the mid-term. In order for us to provide world class wear of the highest quality, and empower our community as a whole through job creation, we shall source all our raw materials as well as our creative and labour needs locally. We plan to employ 50 local people who are skilled seamstresses, tailors, shoemakers/cordwainer, bag-craftsmen and jewelers. We will have in house designers for apparel, accessories, bags and shoes so as to stay abreast with what is on trend but still give it our own flair. All the items will be sold on our online store www.stylebymotle.com . Delivery will be free in South Africa but customers will have to pay for shipping in and around Africa and the rest of the world.

4. 
   THE motle MALL
   

The motle mall is our version of an online mall that offers “virtual” shops of established and up and coming African designers. The designers will pay for the virtual rental space and for any form of advertising that they will require on the app and the online magazine for their virtual store. We believe, this will make fashion by African designers more accessible to the target market of the designers. Most designers are faced with closure of their labels due to mounting fixed costs such as brick and mortar shops at malls and other places that could not be as accessible to the larger part of their target market as well as staffing costs at the shops. By offering them a virtual shop, they do not have to worry about all the costs that come with running a brick and mortar store, as well as being restricted with location since an online store is available to anyone no matter which part of the world they are in. Furthermore, by using our virtual online mall, designers do not have to worry about the hustle and bustle of website upkeep and maintenance.

MARKET STRATEGY

The internet as well as print media in the fashion industry is filled with a lot of western influence from the designers that are show cased to the makeup colours that are trending for that season. There is very little show case of the afro-euro centric view of fashion even though the audience of these African based fashion media have an afro-euro centric understanding of what fashion, beauty and lifestyle choices truly are. Thus we believe that there is a gap between what Africans view as fashionable and beautiful and what is put out there. There is need of an African view on fashion from media to retailers instead of us having to copy and imitate the Euro-American view of what true beauty and good fashion is. There is need to move away from the stereotypical view of African fashion and for us to start embracing the afro-euro identity of the African apparel consumer that is both colourful and inspiring.

A case in point is body image when it comes to trend imitation. African women especially, are curvier and there is a need to celebrate that and show case those designers that embrace the full figure of your typical African woman than show casing designers and clothing lines that fail to embrace that, leaving women with a negative body image. Another case in point is the issue of skin tone. There is now a high prevalence of Africans bleaching their skin because what they see in the African based fashion publications, not to talk of Euro-American publications both print and digital are skinny, light skinned models and fashionably ideal women. Celebrities both in Hollywood and Nollywood are bleaching so that they fit that model of a light skinned woman. We see this especially in Nigeria where 77% of women bleach according to the World Health Organization. Africans need publications that are both trendy and proud of our African heritage and who show case how all skin tones are beautiful.

There is need of a change in mentality and culture so that people stop putting their health at risk and start to fully embrace the caption “ black is beautiful” and it starts with the African fashion industry from the print/digital media to the designers and models on the cat walk. This is our strongest motivation for motle, in that we aim to showcase what a trendy, fashionable 21^st century African is interested in, from fashion to health as well as highlight the good things about being African through the fashion industry, removing the stereotype of disease and war ravaged Africa thus making the motle brand from the online magazine, online store to the app, relatable to our audience.

THE TARGET MARKET

The motle target market are those individuals who are in the 18-35 age group and belong to a Living Standard Measure [LSM] of 6-10. This LSM category has grown by 26% in the past decade according to research done by SAARF. These are individuals who have access to smart phones, tablets and or personal computers, they can afford to buy things online, they follow celebrity trends, are interested in designer brands, they enjoy the best standards of living, are in the top salary brackets, the majority have tertiary education in the form of diplomas or degrees, consume the most media and are interested in politics, media, religion and the environment. This group has higher levels of disposable income than other groups on the continent and will thus have a higher marginal propensity to consume our products and services.

The cell sophisticates are found in this category, in the 18-25 age groups. These are our early adopters. They are the ones who use their smart phones/tablets/PCs not just for communication but also for knowledge acquisition through reading articles on the internet and for entertainment and shopping. Our early adopters are the innovators who want to be trendy, fashionable like their peers but also seek to express their individuality with not only their fashion personality but with the places they visit, the shows they watch and the company they keep. This is a group that finds it easier to shop for the trending fashion for that season on the motle online store, to learn the latest makeup technique on motle’s online magazine and social media outlets [Facebook/Instagram/Twitter], to get outfit suggestions and thus be styled using the motle mobile app they downloaded on the Windows/Google/iTunes stores on their phone or tablet.

The 26-35 age group is the professionals’ category. These are people who now have more responsibilities and thus have less disposable income to spend on shopping unlike the cell sophisticate group. They do rely on their smart devices for payment of bills, entertainment and shopping but their marginal propensity to consume on apparel is less than that of the cell sophisticates. We expect that 55% of our sales will be made by the cell sophisticates and 45% by the professionals’ category.

MARKETING MIX

Our marketing mix is as follows:

• 
  PRODUCTS
  

Please refer to pages 22-24.

• 
  PLACE
  

Please refer to our Business Model Canvas under Chanel

• 
  PRICE
  

The pricing strategy that we will use consists of 4 methods which are :

• 
  Promotional pricing will be used as we believe that our target market likes market favours promotions. We will have Discount Mondays on the motle online store, this is our way of cheering our customers up from the dread and despair that comes from Blue Mondays and the unknown week ahead. There is no better way to cheer someone up than with a discount!
  
• 
  Penetration pricing will be used as we are a new business in an already competitive and highly saturated industry. In order for us to land grab some market share, we will offer the motle app for free on all app stores.
  
• 
  Competition pricing in an already saturated sector is a direction many new businesses take and we are no different. In terms of the online store, we have noticed that our competition such as spree.co.za and zando.co.za, price their goods on the high end which makes them affordable to very few especially in the South African context. In order to address this, we shall have a price ceiling of ZAR999.99 for all of our products whether they are from African designers using the motle mall platform, our motle clothing line or any products sold on the motle online store. We believe that by having this price ceiling we are able to bring trendy, high quality clothing to our target market at a price that they can all afford.
  
• 
  Psychological pricing uses price point perspective so that customers believe that they are paying less or are not exceeding a certain price point that they view as too high. That is why we choose ZAR999.99 as our price ceiling as some people will feel uncomfortable going above the ZAR1000 mark for any purchase on apparel.
  

• 
  PROMOTION
  

As an online business we plan to promote our business using online means as our primary strategy. We will use:

• 
  Search engine marketing, by bid for key words on google, bing and yahoo. For example bidding for “lipstick”, “beauty”, “boho”, which are topics most fashion enthusiast search for. Thus we will use GoogleAdwords with a focus on conversions, or when people take a specific action on our website after clicking on one of our ads. This is known as a cost-per-acquisition, or CPA bid. A CPA bid is perfect for AdWords advertisers who are interested in conversions, like purchases or signups and we fall under that.
  
• 
  Online Display Advertising will give us a higher control over our advertising campaign. The streamlining of ads comes through better positioning to ensure that the right people see the ad. It’s more convenient for us to use ODA rather than conventional print media display advertising which doesn’t give us control over who sees our ad whereas online display advertising targets a specific demographic of people [our target market] who are most likely going to be interested in what we are trying to sell. This translates to a higher conversion rate and greater ROI. Another reason we will use ODA is because it allows us to have a flexible advertising budget. This is because digital advertising offers packages even for a limited budget. Traditional print advertising is expensive, but with digital ads you can spend whatever can be spared for an advertising budget, depending on where and how often you want your ad displayed
  
• 
  We shall use social media advertising on Facebook/Twitter and Instagram. We have already began to build an audience on social media and believe that with the response we are getting so far without advertising, we will get high conversion rates and a good ROI if we do decide to advertise.
  
• 
  Lastly we shall use guerilla marketing to market our brand. Guerilla marketing is all about creating a buzz, being unique, outrageous, clever, witty and most importantly evoking emotion. This is what our brand is about and we believe that our target market will be able to relate to such adverts. For instance we will use Rank Branding as well as Street Furniture advertising, which allows a brand to have millions of commuters at the taxi ranks as the audience to their campaign and potential customers.
  

FINANCIAL PLAN

In our financial analysis, we have done the following, which we believe will communicate to our investors our profitability as a start up:

• 
  5 YEAR CASH FLOW PROJECTION
  
• 
  5 YEAR PROFIT AND LOSS PROJECTION
  
• 
  NPV CALCULATION
  
• 
  FUNDING EXPENDITURE
  

Please view our financial plan on the attached MS Excel files.

INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY

The money that we need is ZAR 1 million and we plan to pay it back at the current prime rate of 9.75%. We believe that with our revenue stream and the sales we will be able to pay off the loan in 24 months at a time which the investor [s] can exit.

APPENDIX 1

MEN’S STYLE BY MOTLE SAMPLES

GYM WEAR

WORK WEAR

CASUAL WEAR

WOMEN’S STYLE BY MOTLE SAMPLES

GYM WEAR

BEACH WEAR

WORK WEAR

NIGHT WEAR

CASUAL WEAR

Motle …….. accessorize your beauty Page