Vocal, motivated and highly driven, Ms Jeannie Pang epitomised the strength of the modern lady, fearless in pursuit of excellence in her chosen field; in this case, Tracyeinny, an online fashion boutique store with a retail outlet at Pickering Street.

Company: TRACYEINNY Address: 3 Pickering Street Nankin Row #01-13/15 S048660 Website: http://www.tracyeinny.com.sg Interview with Ms Jeannie Pang by on 08-Jun-2011. Student can be reached at anticipate-@hotmail.com   Business Profile: Started in 2006, Traceinny's online website was just a Livejournal site, and had a rental space at Pearl's Hill Terrace, Chinatown, mainly used for taking photographs of the models. Now it is a leading online retail store with an amazing customer base with customer orders coming from even Indonesia and Australia. Winning the 2010 Gold Category award for Successful Entreprenour along the way speaks volumes about their intense desire to excel in the blogshop world.   Interviewer's Comments: Meeting Ms Jeannie Pang and Ms Pamela Goi was an exceptionally inspiring moment. Ms Jeannie Pang's fiery attitude could be felt at all times, especially when she answered some of our interview questions. One could sense her intensity and commitment to her work; she even came to work when she was feeling sick and drowsy, and even agreed to come for our interview. Ms Pamela Goi was an effective counterbalance next to Ms Jeannie Pang, a calm and supportive lady. The chemistry between them was apparent, and the interview went very smoothly as they seemed to fill in for each other whenever one was stuck at a question. Both admitted sacrificing a lot for their passion, especially at the initial part of the business; they gave up their jobs and had to work up to 14 hours per day, from Monday to Saturday, just to meet customers' expectations. The only thing that kept them going was their burning passion for clothes, and their desire to succeed. Ms Jeannie's quest for excellence did not just apply to herself; at the end of the interview, she asked us how she could help us achieve a better report. Her motto was 'to always do better than expected', and this motto has clearly served Traceyinny well. They definitely left a mark after the interview; one could never find out what one is capable of unless one has tried their very best.   1. What is the nature of your business? Selling women's apparel online at a retail shop.   2. When and why did you decide to become an entrepreneur / take over your family business? NOTE: If it is not a family business, ask: Do your parents have their own businesses too? Have they inspired you in one way or another? (Select appropriate question according to the entrepreneur being interviewed.) We started in 2007, and it all just happened. It started out with passion ' we love clothes, and we love to do this business. And to be honest, from the time we started until now, everything has been quite smooth sailing. Only a few minor hiccups here and there.   3. What are your reasons for choosing to do business in this particular industry? We are girls, we love clothes!   4. How did you put together all the resources needed to start your business? For example: getting the start-up capital, hiring staff, doing sales and marketing, advertising, etc. Initially, we had our business online. So, at that point in time, we only needed a small setup capital for the website, for the stocks, and for other inventory. (eg. Envelopes.) basically our start-up was small, and after that we expanded ' sales grew, we started to have a shop at Chinatown where we began to hire staff. And presently, we are stationed at this retail shop here. (Pickering street)   5. What are some interesting stories you have about your first few customers/first few years in business? 'Interesting stories...' Positive or negative? (chuckles) We have a lot of interesting stories! Every encounter with every customer with their feedback, we have to learn from it whether it is positive or negative - It helps me to grow the business. Different people have different perspective of things, and that is why every encounter face, we use it to help our business grow. Let's say if a customer does not like a dress, we have to find out why. Maybe to that customer, the material's dissatisfactory, but maybe to another, it is contenting. We have many stories, but it is just a little hard for me to fish them out right now. Pamela: They have a huge anxiety to see our collection; if we give a date, our shoppers would all be there! Jeannie: Yes, for instance if we post a date: 'LAUNCHING ON WEDNESDAY', they would come on Wednesday. It's kind of a unique selling concept, if you ask me. 'Why do these customers follow and do what you say,' maybe that's our interesting story.   6. What are some of the challenges you faced when you first went into business? Capital start-up was not much of a problem as I had worked in the banking industry prior to this. The initial challenges could be getting more customers, brand awareness to customers, establishing customer confidence in your brand and products. Hiring staff was not what we face initially because there was only two of us, but after that when we had staff, it was a huge challenge, as it would be in every business because the staff represent the brand. When our staff makes a mistake, human error occurs, customers do not see it as a single person's mistake, they look at the entire brand.   7. How did you overcome these challenges? Please share some specific examples of the action you took to overcome the challenges. Brand awareness through advertising, making customers know our brand. But to ensure that there exists brand loyalty, we do long-term follow-up. For instance, we ensure that steps like sending out and putting up, are recorded. In that way we know if we have actually sent out a particular product or not. So if a customer has any enquiries, we can safely inform them of the statuses of their products. So this actually allows us to gain our customers' confidence in us, they would trust us more and buy from us more often.   8. Can you remember your worst day in business or a time when you felt like giving up? What happened that made you feel that way and how did you triumph over it? Today! Website crashed first day! Usually on the first day of my launch is when we get the best sales. But I don't feel like giving up, I have never felt like giving up, I only feel like exploding like a volcano (chuckles). How can you give up! You cannot give up that easily.   9. Can you share some of the lessons you learnt from overcoming your own business challenges that you think will help other businesses? You must run your business responsibly, in an honest manner. For instance, if we have not sent out a product to a customer that ordered them, we make sure we apologise and fix the problem. I always tell my girls 'human error occurs', we make a mistake, we acknowledge it, we rectify it and then we learn from it. Just be responsible and honest, and in the long-run customers will gain trust in you as a brand.   10. When was the moment you realised the business would work and support you? When the money starts rolling in! You see, our business started out quite early and at that time there weren't many online shops, so our business was increasing exponentially each year. Then we decided, this is going to work.   11. What are some of your proudest business achievements to date? And why are they so important and meaningful to you? My proudest business achievement is when I ask someone, 'hey, do you shop online?' and they say, 'Yes! Tracyeinny!' No matter how many awards you win, that's the biggest prize. 'What do you think of when you think of online shops?' 'Tracyeinny!' That would be my proudest moment.   12. How do you differentiate your business from your competitors? Please provide specific examples. Perhaps our huge variety of clothes every week. We have 50 to 80 new items weekly, from formal wear to casual wear, bags, clothes, accessories, we have them.   13. What are some business ideas you have implemented that created great results in your business? My head? (Chuckles) Anywhere and anytime, I look at how business are run, how the staff react, what is the customer's conception of the staff and brand, and incorporate that into our website. Everything is about customer experience these days, customer service. Basically I get a little inspiration from everyone around me.   14. Where or who do you get your business ideas from? To open two more retail outlets by the end of 2011. I hope to expand to Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia. We have customers there but I want to open a new website to target the customers there. We can do a lot in five years; we'll see how the trends go before we decide. If we make a plan for the next five years and something changes in the trends, your plans would be for nothing.   15. What does entrepreneurship mean to you? The sense of achievement for my business. When people know about you, when people come from everywhere just to enter your retail store.   16. What are some entrepreneurship qualities that you have which has helped you come this far? I am very driven, very vocal, very determined.   17. In your opinion, what other qualities does a person need in order to be successful in business? And why? (eg. Educational qualification, work experience, family influence, attitude, etc) Work experience, definitely. And education; if you study more, you learn more. Family support, we had a lot of that. Family should have faith in you. And last but not least, a positive attitude!   18. In your opinion, what does it mean to have the 'spirit of enterprise'? To have drive, to be daring. I always encourage everyone, 'if you don't try, you'll never know.' If you fail, you have to learn from your failure. If you fail and you learn, then at least you would not regret. But if you have never tried in ten years, then one day you think back, 'what if.'   19. Who or what motivates and inspires you? Pamela: Jeannie! Jeannie: Everyone, every step along the way. Everyone around me has a little inspiration to give. As long as they are drive, determination. For instance, my cleaner is eighty-one, she's still working! She inspires me because she's so hardworking; she only rests when we rest, and works Mondays to Saturdays. She is our source of inspiration in the office.   20. What are some of your business values and what would you like to pass down to others, particularly the younger generation? Responsibility.   21. Can you share some of the more significant events / incidents that affected or shaped your business philosophy and the way you conduct your business? i.e. SARS, new competition or shifts in market behaviour and trends, etc. No, major events like SARS did not have an impact in our industry. I think the SARS outbreak would have affected others like the tourist industry more heavily than ours.   22. With the changes in the market today, do you think it has become harder or easier to succeed in business? Why do you say so? There are many online shopping websites now, but I think that's healthy. More people are opening up to the idea of shopping. This also means increased competition with competing online shopping websites, but competition is healthy; it helps us grow, helps us improve, a desire to want to do better.   23. What advice would you give young people who want to start their own business? If you don't try, you'll never know. But you definitely have to give it a lot of thought. And sacrifices are bound to be needed in a business, so be prepared!   24. How much have your company grown since it started? In terms revenue, number of customers, manpower and other areas that is applicable to your business. A lot, in terms of manpower, design, sales figures. I was just calculating how much sales have been made to date yesterday ' it is reaching close to one million dollars worth of goods sold for this year. I source my materials from China, I fly there personally once every 10 days.