For one South African entrepreneur, business success has resulted from her looking beyond money and instead focusing on celebrating our rich cultural heritage and helping people.
Bomikazi Nomlala – Chinhamo, owner of Clareb Accessories, says there must be a higher purpose to why you start a business. “My upbringing brought me close to the very real struggles of street vendors, especially in rural areas. Throughout my business journey it has been very important that I can help and support vendors to grow their business and help them put food on the table.”
Clareb Accessories specialises in making traditional, handcrafted beaded accessories and home decor. The company was founded in 2016 in Cape Town, and today provides a range of goods in Xhosa, Zulu, Ndebele and modern colours at its Cape Town outlet and via an online store that serves a global customer base.
“Our products are unique,” says Bomikazi. “We use the smallest size beads to create products of the finest quality. While we have a broad range of goods for sale, customers also occasionally request custom items. And all our goods are sourced from teams of rural women in KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and the Eastern Cape, who work closely with us in designing and producing the accessories we sell.”
Bomikazi’s entrepreneurial journey started at a young age. Growing up in the Eastern Cape, her father was an Anglican priest and her mother a street vendor. After school, she would help out by taking care of the stall to relieve her mom, who would go home and prepare for the next day.
“I learned a lot about selling and the struggles of street vendors during this time. I started selling while I was doing standard 2 at St Patricks JSS to assist my parents with more income until I finished my matric. When I started my business in 2016, it was with the intent to support rural vendors and help their businesses and income grow. The satisfaction of seeing my suppliers grow has been the highlight of my business journey so far.”
While it wasn’t always easy to spend afternoons, weekends and school holidays working at the stall to help her mother, the income from the stall helped get Bomikazi and her brother, Bomi, through school and varsity.
Bomikazi’s mother sadly passed away last year, but her legacy lives on in the business and how it continues to support rural women. “My mom would always challenge me, bringing me new ideas for designs whenever I went back home to the Eastern Cape. Her passion and drive for the business will always stay with me.”
In 2021, a chance encounter with a customer made Bomikazi aware of a new payment service that would allow more of her customers to purchase the accessories they need, whether for personal or cultural use. “One of my customers asked if I have a PayJustNow option, and after some research, I realised this could be a huge help to my customers from an affordability point of view.”
She reached out to the PayJustNow team and added an option to pay via PayJustNow to her online store. “The support from the team has been amazing. In addition to being very responsive to any queries I may have, they have also gone out of their way to promote and support my business, doubling my sales. And in the second six-month period of having PayJustNow, we recorded a 70% increase in sales.”
For Craig Newborn, CEO at PayJustNow, it’s the opportunity to work with other home-grown companies, helping them boost their sales and growing their customer base, that excites him most. “Inspirational entrepreneurs like Bomikazi make an immensely positive impact in people’s lives, helping them celebrate their heritage while also uplifting suppliers who may not have had the same economic opportunities elsewhere. By offering a zero-interest buy-now-pay-later payment option, Bomikazi can sell her incredible beaded accessories to more customers than before, and deliver a positive, no-fuss customer experience that can help her grow her business.”
