Africa-Press – Uganda. With a warm and carefree voice, I listened to the person on the other side and I was captivated. However, there was no telling that Pauline Mujasi has endured some tough times to stay on top.
While she finds herself in education corridors today, it all started 12 years ago out of constant frustration with women’s footwear; size, colour, and style were the constant issues.
“In 2007, at the end of a workshop I had attended as part of my work at Infectious Diseases Institute, Mulago, I went shopping in a mall in Johannesburg and was struck by the sheer variety of footwear on display, in a myriad of styles, colour and design. That was what jolted me into the shoe industry,” she shares.
Five months later, after scouring footwear stores in Kampala to understand the market, Mujasi returned to Johannesburg with Shs10m from savings to buy her first stock.
In the early days, she sold out of her car boot to friends and their networks during her free time and breaks but later searched for space to reach more clientele.
“I wanted space on the then newly opened Capital Shoppers Mall, Ntinda because it is midway between home and work place thus a perfect location. However, there was no slot so I kept checking until six months later when I got a 10 square metres space,” she reminisces. Though smaller than what she needed, Mujasi under the name Shoe Bar took it up because it was a stepping stone and a year later, more space fell vacant to give her 20 square metres.
The first year was very difficult as Mujasi paid her shop’s rent using her salary.
The trigger
Then, social media was not as big as today so walk-ins were few. Lucky for us, the networks created during the boot sales boosted us and we also got spin off sales from these contacts,” she smiles.
Then change came in the form of her husband getting posted to work abroad yet they were just a few months in marriage.
“I made the difficult decision to quit my stable job and follow him. It took three months, which I used to wrap up at my workplace and create systems to sustain the business in my absence. This paid off, as I was able to remotely supervise my business while also achieving sustainability and organic growth over the ten years I was away. My staff, headed by Susan Ssewagudde and supportive family also played a big role in this,” Mujasi shares.
As the business continued to expand, another need of parents constantly asking for school shoes, especially during the back-to-school season arose.
“I was around during one such season and was struck by the franticness and frustration of parents as they moved hunting for these shoes. One client walked into our shop and asked if we had school shoes, to which we responded no. He was very frustrated and told us to pull all the other shoes off the shelves and replace them with school shoes. Looking back, I think we did just that.”
Delving into the school shoe business had many challenges such as a difficulty in getting reliable suppliers thus sourcing from different wholesalers and sometimes the quality did not match the standard they had set for their brand.
To counter these uncertainties, they looked for a manufacturer to do it with their own specifications.
The bad news
“This required ordering big quantities, which was a big leap at that time. We then opted to cut the budget for women’s shoes and accessories despite it being our biggest portfolio. With that, we got our first batch of 500 pairs of school shoes manufactured with our brand name, Skoolies. These were immediately a hit and soon we were making another order with the same manufacturer, which sold out. However, just when we were celebrating, we started getting complaints from clients about the shoes falling apart in a matter of weeks,” she intimates.
This was very devastating for them and they had to come up with a quick in-house strategy to counter the negative publicity, which was to take the shoes off the shelves and send messages to their clients to return the shoes with a promise to make it up to them.
“Irrespective of all this, we lost very many clients, especially first timers. We also lost a lot of money with this botched batch and the lesson learnt is sometimes you need to count your losses and move on, but most importantly, resilience is necessary for any journey you believe in irrespective of the challenges,” she shares.
Evolving
Returning to the drawing board, Mujasi and her team realised that their approach of independently sourcing manufacturers off the internet and the market without any background checks and reviews was the root of the problem.
Pauline and Susan Ssewagudde who helped her grow the business.
“We resorted to looking within our networks of other trusted suppliers, to help us identify credible shoe manufacturers but these had to uncompromisingly deal in genuine leather products with an impressive and recognisable list of active clients. The result was a comfortable pair of school shoes made with high quality breathable leather and flexible rubber soles. We called this new brand Skoolies Premium and trademarked the name Skoolies,” she says.
At Shs105,000 per pair, the cost of the new shoes was almost double the previous cost so with production sorted, they had to engage the clients to explain the shift in product and price as well as win back their confidence.
“Clients who had returned the shoes from the bad batch were called and compensated with a new pair of the premium Skoolies, at half the selling price. These measures helped us slowly win back the previously disgruntled customers,” Mujasi shares.
The school shoe profile grew to encompass school products such as school bags, sneakers, lunch bags, swimming bags and pencil cases pooling an annual turnover of Shs230m.
Covid-19 test
However, as they were still celebrating this milestone, Covid hit and incomes from all the school products took a nosedive yet there were still bills to pay.
It was time to scale up on children’s items that they had stocked on small scale such as party shoes, crocs, rain boots, and sandals.
“Our space needs increased thus opening up another shop in the same location to separate the school items and rebrand that shop to Skoolies while maintaining the other classification of shoes under our pioneer brand, Shoe Bar,” Mujasi says.
The change also meant including items that remain relevant all year round and educational toys seemed like a natural fit because they directly respond to parents’ desire to keep their children’s brains stimulated during these long school breaks yet they not readily available on the market.
“Most of these are Montessori toys, targeting early childhood education to enhance their cognitive abilities while engaging other senses, and helping them experience the world in a meaningful, fun and realistic way. We also stock STEAM toys that prepare and help children appreciate the study of Science, Technology, Arts and Mathematics,” she shares.
Mujasi’s interest in school related items has been informed by her passion for education seeing her initial degree was a Bachelors in Education.
“To educate myself more about business, I read a lot around the subject and my favourite is The Entrepreneur magazine and website,” she says.
Having settled back home in 2020, she is also in the process of reconnecting with her networks and recently joined a professional networking group called Business Network International (BNI) where Mujasi meets and exchanges business with like-minded, resourceful entrepreneurs from Uganda and around the world.
“This network also avails me access to constant online learning resources through the BNI University/Business Builder as well as mentorship and support. During the short membership time, it has exposed me to influential contacts in my field that I would otherwise not have had access to, and who are undoubtedly going to be instrumental in catapulting my business to new heights,” Mujasi shares..
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