Embark on a journey into the heart of e-commerce brilliance with Linvelles. In this exclusive interview, discover the secrets behind the brand’s success and gain insight into the dynamic world of online entrepreneurship. Join us for a quick dive into the unparalleled journey that fuels Linvelles’s prominence in the ever-evolving e-commerce landscape.
1. Can you introduce yourself and Linvelles?
My name is Fawaaz Abbas, and I am one of the founders and majority shareholder in Linvelles London.
Linvelles is a fashion e-commerce store that is specialised in Handbags and clothing, we work with multiple boutiques and online storefronts to list their products to a large audience of UK shoppers, and what’s different about us? We are built around the business model of Buy now, pay later. With the aim of making fashion accessible for absolutely anyone.
2. How was Linvelles born? How did you start?
We came up with the idea of Linvelles initially in 2019 September and began work in October. We started off by contacting banks like Klarna, Clearpay and Laybuy and it was a hard job convincing them to be our payment processors as we were selling such high ticket items, but after a couple of months Klarna joined, and Clearpay followed soon after. The next step was products, now we didn’t just want any products, but rather products customers would awe at so we went straight to stores like House of Fraser and Mytheresa and scraped their sites for all their products until we had suppliers willing to join us. After the inital set-up, we launched our business back on February 29th 2020 because we thought it would be quirky to do it on a leap year date, we launched just before the Covid Pandemic had begun; which would turn out to be a blessing for us.
For the first few months, the business was slow, in fact, it was so slow we accumulated three sales within two months which were demotivating but we pushed on, and soon momentum started to pick up, and we could see people wanted Linvelles, the only store at the time selling designer products from Gucci, Saint Laurent and Burberry, brand new with Buy now, pay later. What was also in our favour was that in Lockdown, nobody could go buy branded items from anywhere other than online and so we made sure Linvelles was the place people came to when they wanted branded goods.
By month six we thought we were ready to get suppliers, so our first call was to approach Farfetch (at the time we just wanted cuts in sales), who thus rejected us within a few messages, but we were not going to stop so decided to go and find out Farfetch’s suppliers and make deals with them. After sending out 300-400 emails to all their boutiques, we only received 10-20 replies, but this was enough to get going, so we carried on and got them on board. Today, after months of working with the companies, Linvelles has built a strong relationship between us, our suppliers and our customers as we believe in creating a sense of community within the business.
3. What makes Linvelles different? Can you explain your products with details?
Our goal is not to be just any fashion company but rather the fashion company people can turn to, to buy their luxury clothing and accessories without breaking the bank, because as we say; luxury fashion must be accessible to everyone. Our Product range consists of Bags, clothing, accessories and even footwear by the worlds largest brands, from Gucci to Valentino we have it all!
4. What reactions do you get from your clients? Do they love your products?
Customers love us, we provide them with whatever they want, and in the case where we can’t get the product from suppliers, we do not hesitate to outsource them, just so the customer can feel unique wearing precisely what they want. Because our business is based around having the best products with Buy now, pay later; our customers absolutely love what we offer, and we have hundreds of returning customers every month!
5. What are the advantages of Linvelles?
What are the advantages of Linvelles? We make our customers feel more unique, more fashionable and happier while wearing things bought from us, want a £700 bag? No problem you don’t need to pay now to look glamourous, just pay in instalments, and you should be fine!
Overall, Linvelles is a company with the goal of allowing anyone and everyone to wear the best fashion clothing and accessories no matter what their bank account says as we believe luxury fashion should be for everyone.
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