Love Your Beautiful: Women Entrepreneurs Set Up a Digital Business From Home

Owners of North East based online fashion company Love Your Beautiful, Michelle Hayton and Rosie Malley, left their safe middle income jobs at a large North East software company and bravely set out on their own.

The two friends, who got to know each other in their previous jobs where Rosie was a Senior Sales Manager and Michelle a Product Marketing Manager, have worked together for 12 years. When the opportunity for a career change came up due to a recent restructure at their previous firm, the offer of a redundancy settlement was too good to turn down.

With no firm plans for the future, the pair left their old jobs behind in December last year. Following this they started meeting up with other friends affected by the re-organisation to support each other in looking for jobs and the idea for their online clothing business http://www.loveyourbeautiful.co.uk was born.

The idea to run a fashion business came about by brainstorming some ideas together and researching information about the industry on the internet. "The UK fashion market was worth £10 billion in 2015 and predictions see it as being worth £19 billion by 2020," says Michelle. "It's a very busy marketplace but we knew we only needed a small part of it to be successful."

"We identified a gap in the market for trendy, affordable fashion for women of all shapes and sizes," adds Rosie. "Although our primary target market is 18-24 year olds, we're finding that our customers' ages can range far beyond this."

The business has been trading for only 8 weeks, having launched on 5^th May, and customer feedback so far has been 100% positive with comments such as: 'I can't believe the quality of the shoes and dresses LYB are selling! I'm delighted with my outfit!' Mandy T from Heddon on the Wall and "Your skinny jeans are amazing, will be back to order more." Sam N from Dunfermline.

"We're delighted with the feedback we've had so far," says Michelle. "Rosie and I have worked together for 12 years on many sales and service projects and we know how important customer satisfaction and a great customer experience is for any business so we'll be ensuring that we continue to provide this."

Rosie adds: "Love Your Beautiful is about how you feel on the inside as well as looking great on the outside and we recognise that we can only do this by creating value in the eyes of our customers. So far, people have been delighted with the quality of the clothes we sell, particularly in relation to the price."

Currently the business is run from Rosie's home in Chester-le-Street, Durham and both women say they have absolutely no regrets about their start-up decision. "It's early days but working for yourself is so rewarding," says Michelle. "Having worked for large corporates all my life, the job satisfaction of having control over the decisions you make, the freedom to be more creative, and to learn and try new things while making our dream become reality is amazing! I know we're taking a risk, especially as we're new to the industry but we've been very careful with our costs and cash flow and being a digital business has helped keep our overheads down. We have also been buying fashion for most of our lives and believe that a love for what you're doing combined with great business sense and dogged determination is a recipe for success, and I would rather regret taking the risk than spend the rest of my life wondering what might have been."

About Love Your Beautiful  

Love Your Beautiful is an online fashion retailer based in Durham selling fun, affordable fashion for women primarily aged between 18 and 24 years old. Love Your Beautiful's philosophy is dress to be yourself meaning you can feel confident, happy and beautiful being just who you are. They provide good quality, affordable fashion that fits well so you feel good on the inside as well as looking great on the outside.

For further information, please contact: Michelle Hayton or Rosie Malley at [email protected]