In a remarkable journey that spans continents, a retail entrepreneur in Trinidad and Tobago has turned her passion for hair extensions and wigs into a thriving business. After relocating to the UK with her husband, she faced the challenge of maintaining her career as an attorney while managing a new venture. Utilizing her family’s business background and the power of Loyverse POS, she has successfully streamlined her operations and expanded to multiple locations. Her story is a testament to resilience, adaptability, and the belief that hard work truly pays off.

What type of business do you run, and how did your journey as a business owner start?

I have a retail business in Trinidad and Tobago that sells hair extensions and wigs. The business started in 2016. My husband is part of the air force in the UK. Because of his job and of us getting married, it meant that he was going to travel a lot. I moved from Trinidad and Tobago to the UK to live with him. Due to this, it was challenging to keep my profession; I am an attorney. Since I could not be a stay-at-home wife, transferring my business to the UK would not be suitable since my husband would move a lot, and I would move with him. That is why we decided to get something that would entertain me. I have always been interested in online businesses. I started to see various options for what type of business I could open, and my mom suggested the hair extensions and wigs business. She knew several people who were doing the same business as well. I started to research, and about a half and a month later, we ordered our first box of hair extensions, and that was it; we haven’t stopped since. The business has grown really well for the last couple of years. Last December, we opened our second location. An advantage that helped me with my business was the fact that I had some knowledge about business management. I come from several years of being with my mom and dad who have run their businesses over the years of growing up. 

Does your family help you manage the business since you are not always physically there? 

No, I have set up everything. I have made the businesses independent. I have CCTV cameras. I monitor and control everything from England. One challenge I have is caused by the difference in time between Trinidad and UK. UK is five hours ahead, so if I need to arrange something with my staff, I have a few hours available to do this in a convenient time for both my team and myself. But I have managed to basically control everything remotely. 

What is the philosophy that you always try to follow in business?

I would say hard work pays off. It was hard when we started because we needed customers to believe in our business and products. There are a lot of other sellers in the market and a lot of sellers that are scammers in the industry as well. There were a lot of nights that we could get only 2-3 hours of sleep to reply to all our customers. My husband would often help me even though he was working as well. I would get to bed at 10 pm, for example, and my husband would wake up to check all the messages that we were receiving online from our customers and register their orders. As I said, hard work pays off, and I think this is how a journey in business works.

How did you come to know about Loyverse?

We initially used to use another point of sale. After a couple of years, in 2022, we decided to move the business from offline to online because of the pandemic. I created an online store and was able to sync it with our POS initially. However, the synchronization began to have issues, and I could not find out where the error was. The stock displayed in the online store was not correct. This situation forced us to find another alternative. While searching, we tried several POS systems. When we came across Loyverse, it was one of the best options for us in the market. The only drawback was that it could not be synced with Ecwid, the platform we used for our online store. 

How has the Loyverse system impacted your retail operations and overall business efficiency?

I like it because, first of all, it is a straightforward platform to use and understand. We have used customer support several times when we initially transferred everything to Loyverse and received immediate support, which we didn’t have before. I loved the fact that you can have multiple locations in the same account, and you don’t have to log out and log in to something else. The only thing that I would have liked is to see the sales report by stores in the same view rather than having to filter one by one. We have two physical locations and a website. The website is only the addition of the two locations. I would like to see a grid in the Dashboard that shows the stock in each store for each item. 

Are you using any of the paid services that Loyverse offers? 

Yes, I am using Advanced Inventory and Employee Management. Advanced Inventory is beneficial for keeping track of stock and recording everything. Employee Management has been a lifesaver, with the option of managing employees’ access rights. I have set up their role so they cannot change or edit anything. When I need to update items or some settings, I do it myself from the Back office. Initially, when I transferred my business to Loyverse, I hired someone in IT to manage the account, but we had some misunderstandings, and I could not rely on him anymore, 

Have you added your customers to your Loyverse account and activated the Loyalty program? 

Yes, I am using that at the moment. I recently activated the loyalty program. The customers accumulate points on every purchase, but we have not started redeeming the points yet. 

How do you utilize Loyverse’s reporting and analytics features to make informed decisions about product assortment, pricing, or promotions?

The reports are really lovely. It is much better than the other POS that we used before. I like very much the shift report and the detailed breakdown it gives for all the cash movements in the cash drawer. I also use the Dashboard app a lot, which helps me quickly see the stock of all items in different stores. 

Is there any advice or words of wisdom you would like to share with aspiring entrepreneurs looking to start their own business?

I suggest going for it. You will never know what works unless you try it. If it doesn’t work, that is fine as well. Keep on it, and you will find something that works for you.