I got my wigs business idea at the church altar

A lot comes from the altar - lifelong unions, a new identity at baptism, name them. But for Abbey Glory, a business idea was born out of church fellowship at the altar.

The 28-year-old CEO and co-founder of Abbey Lace Wig, a business focusing on selling human hair wigs, her love for being in good-looking hair saw her land a groundbreaking deal with a foreign supplier of hair.

In this day and age where social media and content creation is at its peak, you can never go wrong with the right wig.

For some books, a woman is as glorious as her hair!

“My husband and I are grounded in ministry work; my husband is a pastor. One day, a lady spotted me while in a church fellowship and introduced me to a human hair supplier because she felt my hair looked good. She taught my husband and I how to do hair business,” says Glory.

Glory, who started the business with her husband, says that they have seen growth because now they have employed many people.

“Working together as a couple has not been difficult, because we have the goal, vision and mission. And I think it is the main reason we have grown this far,” she says.

Shortly after this encounter, Glory started the business with an initial capital of Sh500: “We started selling from the house online, marketing our product digitally. We then started doing deliveries because we didn’t have space. Over time, we used our savings to upscale our business and now we make and style wigs,” she says.

“Starting up was not easy because we did not have enough capital,” she says.

Her business, which is now about to clock five years, has taught he a couple of lessons: “What we consider important in operating a business is the client. Good customer service is the backbone of any business. Personally, I was called to serve.”

She says that without honesty, a business might never survive, adding that ploughing back profits into the business has played a major role in their growth.

She says her target customer is anyone who wants to look good.

“The market here is good, people have accepted human hair, especially during the time of Covid,” she says, attributing this to the changing dynamics in different generations: “The older generations shied away from wigs, but the current one is very accommodative of the wigs.”

She says human hair saves time and money: “Human hair can serve you for years... It saves you from having to sit in the salon for eight hours.”

For her, the need to solve a problem is the most important thing when running a business: “I am passionate about this because I love looking good and I would love to see other women look stunning, too.”

With the current shift to the digital space, Glory markets her product on social media through Facebook and Instagram.

She imports the wigs she sells from China: “We get our stock from different countries but our main source is China. The main challenge we face during importation is delays. It takes a long time to deliver an order from overseas. Fluctuating prices are also a challenge - sometimes we set a price and then the wigs come with a different price from the supplier.”

She says competition is stiff in the industry because “people are doing the same business. I, however, thrive through great customer service, branding, packaging, right location and marketing”.

For her business to come this far, she says, branding has helped: “We package our stuff for deliveries in a way that will make the client feel it is worth the price they’ve paid.”

She says on top of that, timely deliveries, through their delivery guys, has also helped them grow the business.

Glory, who is also a PR practitioner, says human hair solves a lot of women’s problems: “Women suffer low self-esteem due to hair breakages and undefined hairline. But the esteem can be restored by just wearing a wig. Also, people with medical conditions affecting the hair can cover their hair with wigs.”

Besides selling wigs, Glory says they offer wig laundry services “because wigs need maintenance”.