07 Jan 2025

School shopping sprees are back following the Christmas festivities and all sorts of preparations are ongoing to get  school children ready for schools reopening. 

Despite the norm of parents being on the rush in the last minutes, Ms Tebelo Mohutsiwa of Letsela Fashion World confirms that though many customers crowded her business, it did not overwhelm her operations. Though busy at the time of the interview, she said she was still expecting more customers to come as the schools were nearing reopening. 

She said though her business faced competition from seasoned stores and fellow local tailors, she had no option but to trade. 

“My main strength is the quality of my work. That’s what makes me to stand out amongst my competitors. Many people have been buying here and they have kept their loyalty due to the quality and the excellent service they get,” commented Ms Mohutsiwa. 

“However, even if big stores supply the same products we are trading with, they sometimes beat us to business due to our limitations,” she remarked. 

She highlighted lack of local skilled machinery repairers except foreigners who are expensive. She decried that at times the repairer would attend the machine and it would still not function, a situation she said limited her to provide embroidery service, which is highly demanded on school uniforms. 

She expressed that though some customers opted to buy uniform from big shops, they bought without embroidery work without complaint, a demand they make when buying from local small businesses. 

Seiphiso Tsimako, one of the parents who bought some uniform items from one of the big shops explained that she had to get some uniforms from the big stores because quite often the local tailors’ prices were way too high to bear. 

“Making school uniforms is a seasonal work which has its pick times especially when schools reopen,” said Ms Nteba Metshe of Ingo Creations. 

She said due to such seasons many parents waited until late and by the time back to school came there might be delays to fulfill their demands as some failed to get ready made uniforms, which means placing an order and waiting on it.

 She further said fortunate ones found sizes when they came. She said she was currently making uniforms for form ones and standard ones. 

She attributed the low turn up of customers at her business despite the peak season to the fact that big businesses also sold grey trousers. 

She further said there was not much they could do, as it was the government’s decision to allow big shops to trade in school uniforms. Ends