IT’S A NEW YEAR

What are your goals and aspirations for this year? Whatever they are, start to work at reaching them NOW, by now I mean from Day 1 of the year, so start if you haven’t already started. It is the steps you take now, how quickly you take them, that will determine what the end is going to be at the End, in this case, End is the end of year 2023. I am speaking specifically for our type of business; Fashion Retail. Although this may also apply to most businesses.

At Wikabani we have taken stock of the Slows and the Quicks in our thinking and acting last year 2022 and how it affects our bottom line at the end of the year. Thanks to a great Team. Yes it was a year with its economic challenges, foremost is the foreign exchange rate to the Naira, the local currency of Nigeria our country of business and residence. In the case of our own business, concern was highly on the consistent astronomical rise in the rate of exchange of the US dollar ($) to the Naira. What this meant was high cost of goods, pricing of Merchandise became a tough challenge, because we still want customers to be able to afford our products and make profits too however minimal. As an organization, we pride ourselves in being able to provide our customers with affordable but quality clothing and accessories.

Having taken stock of our activities of last trading year, our overall finding is, we were quick at taking some opportunities, restocking on time and enough to meet some of the high sales periods of that year, which is good, however, due to the fact that we didn’t move quickly at some other times largely due to lack of enough funding, we lost some sales too. Access to trading funds when needed is key to our sales and business success. Therefore this year we hit the ground running a lot earlier in our plans and actions, putting all required machineries in place for the year’s business. Right now on the local production front we have identified what designs and patterns is required to produce the garments for the year; what is going to be produced in what sizes and quantities, we are a minimal quantity per design business. We have also identified fabric types required for each type of garments, and sourcing those fabrics locally and abroad.

Lastly as a multi-brand store we also carry foreign brands, ordering is already ongoing at this point, shipments too, thus our New arrivals will start to be in-store by Saturday the 21st Jan, 2023.   

We look forward to serving even better this year, our Returning and New customers alike.

Kemi Animashaun                                                                       MD/CEO WIKABANI