4:10pm Monday 6th February 2006
By Nishika Patel
A savvy Bradford entrepreneur whose motto is "Aim high, work hard" has swapped law for business in a bid to make her store the next big thing in the increasingly competitive Bradford Asian fashion world.T&A Repor ter NISHIKA PATEL meets her.
Shafia Maqsood has packed away her law books after a fouryear degree to follow her ambition and drive a small but popular shop, off Leeds Road, to new heights.
Shafia, 28, and her husband Zaheer Khadam, 29, have just bought another £300,000 property on Killinghall Road to meet the high demand from customers of Pakistani Bazaar, who travel from as far as Glasgow and Middlesbrough just to shop there.
Aware of the competitive market in the Asian fashion industry in Bradford, Shafia knows it will be a tough ride but is determined to succeed.
"Our generation takes more risk than the previous, " she said. "We are prepared to take a bigger risk because we know we can do it. In ten years we want to be as big as Bombay Stores."
Already, her Harewood Street store has gone from strength to strength, starting off as a market stall in Leeds in 2000 and flourishing to a three-floor business.
"We set up to run a normal business but as it began to expand we knocked the wall back and built upwards, " she said.
"Now we want something bigger on the main road so we can be seen. We just don't have the space to store our stock and accommodate the number of customers."
The idea to go into Asian textiles originated from Zaheer, who had run a clothing business in Pakistan.
"My husband focused on ready-made clothes when we were on the market stall but this did not work because market customers were into buying loose fabric and making their own garments, " said Shafia.
"That's when we decided to set up a shop to sell the ready-made outfits, which has been a tremendous success. We bought my uncle's old shop and took it from there."
Shafia says the company's success lies in low prices, which it can afford by buying its products from Pakistan and, more recently, from India.
"We go out and buy the fabric from abroad to keep the cost low, then we keep the profit margins as low as possible. We like to keep the stock moving and make sure it moves fast, " she said.
"For the past year we have been travelling to New Delhi to get more variety as people want the latest Bollywood trends."
Shafia said life could get hectic at times, with managing the business, jetting abroad and looking after her three-yearold son Aiden, but this has not quenched her thirst for achieving more.
Now she has applied to be a magistrate.
Although law has been Shafia's first passion - she studied at Leeds Metropolitan University and Bradford College until 2002 - she has always leaned towards business.
She learned some invaluable lessons during her business GNVQ, in which she achieved a distinction, at Carlton Bolling College, Undercliffe, and was handed down a few pearls of wisdom by her father, who owned a grocery store.
"My course has helped a lot as we covered competition, pricing and market research - I put all this into practice, " she said.
"My dad always said that if you work, work hard and be ambitious and you will go somewhere.
I've lived by this."
Shafia also hopes for a practical helping hand from the Lift Project, funded by Regen 2000, which is investing in local enterprises.
Currently, the couple employ one full-time worker and one part-time. That will increase to ten full-time workers at the new store which they hope to renovate and open within six months.
"Money is being investing into the community and it is helping, " said Shafia.
"We will be attracting trade to the city and providing employment."
The plan is to build a special weddings section, where people can buy everything for the occasion, from decorations to the traditional doli carriage.
Asian fashion is a competitive market and it is a challenge to survive, said Shafia, with companies sprouting up and others closing down.
"There are already seven or eight shops on Leeds Road and it used to be dead, " she said.
"People used to travel to BD5. I think people are going back towards culture - the trend is pushing back.
"But you must do your homework before you start. A lot have closed down. You have to keep on top of it."
Akeel Amini, pictured below, the jointowner of 25-year-old Crown Textiles and newly-opened designer boutique Ranis, which are on White Abbey Road, takes the same view.
"The competition is massive, " he said.
"You see businesses closing just as fast as they set up. People come into fashion from different fields because they see it doing well.
"They fall because they do not have the product knowledge and how to target the right audience."
But he sees a bright future for Asian fashion in the city, in line with its regeneration.
"Bradford will soon have more textile houses than takeaways, " he said. "It just takes one person and the rest follow. Soon White Abbey Road will be the cultural mile."
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