By Khairie Hisyam
After several underwhelming business ventures, a couple finally found a business idea that works. Yet they were catapulted into even bigger success through a simple slingshot: social media.
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Nearly three years after Aminuddin Basirron and Faridah Zakaria started their tudung line in 2006, business was good.
Their following was loyal and growing. Turnover was touching six figures. The media was increasingly riveted by their success, breaking new ground in fashionable tudung wear.
Aminuddin Basirron
Little did they expect that things were about to get much, much better. The tipping point, according to Aminuddin, was social media. “At the time social media was catching on, so I suggested to my wife that we create a page on Facebook,” said Aminuddin. “Now we have more than a million likes after five years.”
It was a sudden spurt of growth, he added, as they watched customer numbers grew in lockstep with Fareeda’s increasing popularity on Facebook. Demand rose faster than they could produce new tudungs, causing Fareeda to run low on stocks more and more frequently as the business entered 2010, opening two more branches in Kuala Lumpur and Shah Alam respectively.
“It was quite sad sometimes when we had to close down the branches for days because we ran out of stock,” recalled Aminuddin. “We kept the Bangi boutique open though because the production was upstairs, so finished tudungs went straight down to the store.”
The expansion continued over the years and Fareeda opened more branches, totalling eight outlets today. Apart from two outlets in Bangi, the business has physical boutiques in Shah Alam, Kuala Lumpur, Subang, Kelantan and Penang. The latest, in Alamanda Putrajaya, was opened on Jan 25 this year.
Along the way Aminuddin quit his job and managed the business full-time, handling business operations and finances while his wife focuses on design with a team of five to six assistants today.
While Fareeda used to rely on external delivery agents, these days stocks are delivered with its own truck to outlets, several hundred tudung articles at a time, shared Aminuddin.
“So far we have one truck. If it’s really urgent we use the company car (to deliver),” he told KINIBIZ. “We do want to add one or two more trucks but that depends (on 2015 performance) because we have plans to expand to Johor Bahru.”
No business loans, yet
Indeed a more intriguing aspect of the Fareeda growth journey had been finances – the business had never taken out any business loans, said Aminuddin.
“We just rolled forward our profits and reinvested into growing,” said Aminuddin. “We didn’t freely spend what we earned from the early days – it was not that we didn’t want to borrow but we didn’t feel the need.”
In addition, demand for Fareeda tudungs was steady, so the couple thought the business could still manage costs while maintaining growth without business loans, he added.
And Fareeda’s turnover of RM34.3 million in 2013, translating into RM3.1 million in net profit, seems to vindicate their view. So what does Aminuddin think is the secret to the brand’s success?
“Our philosophy is simple – we make unique, elegant and exclusive products with a difference for our customers,” he said after some thought. “We focus on these aspects.”
It is a formula that apparently works for their target crowd: working Malay Muslim females aged between 20 and 50. According to Aminuddin, he estimates this segment of the population to be roughly four million strong. “Our customer base is mixed but mostly middle-income career women, both in the public and private sectors, according to our own studies.”
Compared to the demand from this segment, however, Fareeda’s production is barely coping in peak periods. From a one-person production team comprising Faridah back in the early days, the tudung line now boasts two main production centres in Bangi as well as one in Kelantan – and these still aren’t enough.
Strong demand locally had been one factor in Fareeda’s decision to stay local for now despite demand overseas, shared Aminuddin. So much so that running out of stocks had become a regular occurrence for the business, the worst being in 2013, he recalled.
“Imagine, we had to close our boutique in Shah Alam two weeks before Aidilfitri because we ran out of stock,” he said. “Even in Bangi a crowd lined up in the hundreds every day – our new designs run out several hours after we put them out during peak periods like Aidilfitri.”
A market of its own
The limited availability of Fareeda’s products largely comes down to its exclusivity niche – for the company only produces up to 100 articles of every variation of a new design.
According to Aminuddin, the business strategy is to unveil a new design, which comes in multiple variations, every few months. To this day the fresh designs are still the brainchild of his wife Faridah, working from a special studio at home – so far he estimates that some 20 designs have been sold, with 15 proving best-sellers.
“We have dozens of designs, some not yet unveiled,” said Aminuddin, adding timing is crucial in relation to current trends and customer moods. “These things also depend on production because different designs have different requirements – sometimes the shift to a particular design may incur too high in costs, so we try to balance things out.”
A side effect of the limited number of Fareeda tudungs at the boutiques has led to an entire secondary market for the items – a growing number of buyers purchase in bulk whenever new designs are unveiled to on-sell through social media.
This is the primary cause of the astonishing crowd camped outside the company’s main boutique in Bangi, often well before dawn, ahead of Fareeda’s new designs hitting the shelves, pre-announced through Facebook and Instagram.
“When they see our products being so well-received, they saw an opportunity to make money,” said Aminuddin, adding that while the articles are priced over RM100 each, demand for especially popular variations has seen prices go as high as RM500 to RM600 per article. “The on-sellers are most of the early campers.”
It is a lucrative market for the on-sellers, who operate mainly through Facebook and Instagram. According to Aminuddin, the on-sellers often book high income in the region of RM10,000 a month.
However, the phenomenon has also raised much criticism, especially over the apparent obsession with Fareeda’s designs as well as what critics perceive as excessive profit-making on the on-sellers’ part. Among others, detractors even compared the early-campers to the homeless, begging on the sidewalks.
“We never told them to do these things – it just happened. And we don’t control them, though we do advise them to re-sell at more reasonable prices,” said Aminuddin, shrugging as he added that while Fareeda monitors the secondary market for its products, “what can we do?”
In part, this is in turn due to production limits. While crafting tudungs may be similar to making shirts, there are differences that require a human touch behind every sewing machine, said Aminuddin.
“Our workers, after a few years of training, can produce a product of real quality, unique and beautiful and artful,” he said, eyes emanating pride of his staff’s work.
While the business has considered expanding production by possibly setting up a factory at some point, it is not something they want to rush headlong into, said Aminuddin, given such an endeavour involves heavy investment in machinery and manpower.
“Demand is high, as much as we can we would love to give our customers what they want,” said Aminuddin. “But we also have to balance the exclusive branding of our products.”
Yesterday: Sewing on a tudung business
Tomorrow: Charting Fareeda’s way forward
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