What customers really want

Heather 15 September 2025 SMME Cluster
What customers really want

Picture shows (l to r): Hannah Lavery of the Hannah Lavery brand; Erica Elk of CDI, Henry Mathys of the V&A; Elektra Georgiadis of Earth Age; Harmonie Mbunga of UDO & HARMONY during their panel discussion held at Zeitz Mocaa.

All shopping is fundamentally a transaction, of course. But at the same time many of us recognise that we prefer to spend our money in places and on brands we relate to. In a world of almost infinite choice, we get a buzz from supporting people, venues and products whose story speaks to us; and which make us feel part of something bigger. We want our spending to serve a bigger purpose, and we’ll pay a premium for that.

At the same time there’s the almost shocking allure of Shein and Temu-style online marketplaces. In 2024, cross-border online shopping amounted to around $478bn*. Our values and even quality considerations pale when confronted by these brands’ glossy and aggressive marketing, as well as their super-low prices: more than half of the buyers polled cite cost as a driver of their decision to buy.

How do these things square up?

This is what the 2025 V&A Small Business Dialogues set out to explore: under the banner of “Winning the evolving customer”, the event focused on how small businesses can thrive in the customer experience-led economy, where loyalty is earned through relevance, relationship, and responsiveness; but where the competition also includes global discounters.

We must speak to our strengths, said Erica Elk of the Craft and Design Institute (CDI): “The key thing I’ve learned is that success is about you, your product, your service, and , importantly, finding the right customer for you.

“When we started, for instance, there was an expectation that crafts should be cheap because they were made by hand. What we tried to do was shift that narrative: because they’re made by hand, we said, they are an expression of that person, there is a premium for that product.”

CDI has proven over time that there are many, many customers who buy into the premium of personal creativity. The non-profit’s 7 000+ members have benefited from what has turned into a global swing towards makers and crafts as the world catches up with CDI’s philosophy. In a 2024 article in The Medium, this was summed up beautifully: “Handmade items offer clients not just ownership of a product but the continuation of a story – crafted by human hands, preserving centuries-old skills…”

Elk was sharing the podium with three designers: Hannah Lavery; Harmonie Mbunga, founder of UDO & HARMONY; and Elektra Georgiadis, co-founder of Earth Age. The panel – the first of two on the night – was moderated by Henry Mathys, Strategic Programme Manager at the V&A Waterfront.

Here are some major take-outs from the stories they shared with the entrepreneurs and small business owners who packed the venue:

THE POWER OF DIGITAL PRESENCE

Hannah Lavery the brand has its roots at the Watershed, which is home to many small creative businesses. “In our early years, we were trying to figure out our product and our messaging,” said Lavery. “Apart from our Watershed presence, we also had an online store, but only because we knew we should. We never actually had any sales through it.

“During Covid, all that changed: we had no option but to sell online. It’s expensive to have an online shop – you’re paying an equivalent of rental to be visible. You have to pay for advertising, for instance. So we had to become a lot more intentional about it.

“We wanted to be relatable, so I made what for me was the very difficult decision to come out from behind the camera and step in front of it. But it shifted things as we told the story of our products and our people through our social media channels. It still is one of our strengths in brand awareness.” You can see this in action in the brand’s Insta feed.

In time, in part because of how their digital presence extended the Hannah Lavery fan base, the brand grew too big for their Watershed space. Off the back of their growing success, they were offered a space at the newly renovated Alfred Mall at the V&A. “We were excited by the space,” said Lavery, “but was a big jump. I did a lot of spreadsheets, like what we had to sell every day to cover costs.”

Clearly her calculations were good, because the business that was never going to have its own bricks and mortar store now has four across the country. And the business that only had an online presence because they had to, now has more than 60 000 followers on Instagram alone.

THE POWER OF AN INTERNATIONAL PLATFORM

Covid and the Watershed also had a role to play in Earth Age finding its feet. “I co-founded the brand with two schoolfriends who also loved crafts,” said Elektra Georgiadis. “Covid separated us, and we dealt with it by speaking online for hours; the time out gave us space to start developing our brand.

“Without knowing anything about business, we started. We spent endless girls’ nights crocheting hats and water bottle holders which looked nothing like what we sell today. No two hats came out the same. There were many lessons: we spent money on things we didn’t need to; and we made money on things we didn’t expect to. Like Hannah, we didn’t use our online presence intentionally – if a sale popped up through that, great, but we didn’t expect it.

“We were sure, though, that we wanted to our product to be sustainable and made with eco-friendly material; and along the way, we discovered hemp intertwined by cotton, which to some extent defined our niche – natural and organic.”

One ordinary Watershed day, a Dior scout lingered and started asking questions. “At first,” and not surprisingly, “we thought we were being scammed,” said Georgiadis. But ultimately, after some false starts, a Dior visit to the Earth Age studio to meet the makers there, and many months, it was the real deal. It turns out that it’s a complicated matter joining a globally iconic brand. “We were talking to about 52 people, the same thing over and over again for months on end. It was hard to keep up with them,” said Georgiadis.

Earth Age products have now paraded down international catwalks, and there is no going back.

THE POWER OF BRAND AUTHENTICITY

For the third time, here are Covid and the Watershed playing catalytic roles again, though in different ways. “We moved into the Watershed in 2020/1 when we were all trying to figure out ways to survive,” said UDO & HARMONY’s Mbunga.

“2022 was the year for us to recover,’ she continued, before pausing and breaking into laughter. “I keep saying ‘we’; it was literally just me.”

It was only in 2023 that things crystallised for Mbunga. “UDO means ‘peace’ in Igbo, a language of the Igbo people of Nigeria. I paired it with the English word, ‘harmony’, and loved how the two paired together in sound and meaning. ‘UDO & HARMONY’ – meaning ‘peace and harmony’. Finding this word ‘Udo’ in 2021, with such a beautiful meaning, was what planted the seed to eventually rebrand from VALOYI.”

After surviving Covid, this rebranding was the symbol of renewal to which Mbunga felt called. Also, she finally had the resources and launched the Zuri cardigan which went on to become the brand’s hero product. “It was the catalyst that allowed us to grow. Seeing someone wanting to invest in something you created is incredibly validating. It made me feel as though I had always been on the right path; it was validating for my vision. That there are people who want to wear clothing that has a story and meaning. And that is what The Zuri Cardigans have become – a wearable work of art; a vessel for African storytelling.”

Mbunga is very clear about the narrative behind her range. “I’ve worked frequently at my store at the Watershed; and I noticed a repetitiveness in what I was telling customers about the patterns on our knitwear. Because sharing the story and symbolism of our patterns is so important – and this importance needs to be consistently communicated – I thought, why not just write a booklet and script for my sales staff? That way, they can effectively share the story with the same confidence.

“I’m glad I thought of that, because sharing this African knowledge and heritage is important; it’s what the ethos of our brand is all about.”

SOME LAST WORDS

“In the broader retail environment, the small businesses which make their home within the Waterfront ecosystem play a really meaningful role,” confirms Alex Kabalin, V&A Retail Executive. “They drive innovation in many ways; they are creative, as well as the biggest drivers of job creation and like Hannah provide a future growth pipeline. This adds up to them playing a big role in creating a unique experience for visitors.

“That’s why we are so supportive of their presence in our space – more than half the businesses across the precinct are small businesses.”

CDI, while itself a non-profit, is a valued colleague in the world of supporting small businesses. It has been working to launch and support makers in small businesses for 25 years, through a myriad economic and social upheavals, and multiple business cycles. Elk shared a few epiphanies from  along the way:

  • “In the beginning, like most startups, we knew what we had to do – build the sustainability of the sector – but we didn’t know how we were going to do it – though it seemed there was a lot of potential in craft for businesses and jobs. The buzz then (and still now) was that craft is easy to make a business from because there are low barriers to entry. Sure, it’s true there are lower barriers to entry – skills can be fairly easily taught and learnt; and equipment is not necessarily expensive – but there remain very high barriers to success. Our designers and makers are not only competing with large brands in SA, but also with big international brands – we’re all competing for the same purchasing power – and these big brands have huge marketing and R&D budgets. We need to look this fact in the eye and be very smart about how we compete”.
  • “Craft and design are not products; they are verbs… they are a process of planning and making.” This gets people to think about their products in a different way – your product is not craft; it’s jewellery, or furniture, or décor or fashion… it is a big awakening, and a big shift for many creative businesses. It opens up huge market opportunities and different routes to market when you think about product category.
  • “As a creative you think it has to be you that does everything in your business.” This is common across all entrepreneurial businesses, and it’s the cause of significant burnout. “Early on,” said Elk, “we wanted to unpack for creative entrepreneurs you don’t need to be everything your business needs – in fact you can’t be; no-one is good at everything. It’s not a failure to recognise this; but you can open up to what others can contribute and play to your strengths.
  • CDI recognised early that there are three pillars to an enterprise: product, market and business and has structured its support to help creative practitioners deal with these. Firstly, help businesses crystallise their product – what is your unique selling point; secondly, help them understand their routes to market; and the third is about business – including understanding staff needs and management, understanding the financials, production models etc. You need to be thinking about all of these pillars, all of the time – even as your business grows.

RESOURCES

ABOUT THE V&A SMALL BUSINESS DIALOGUES

Drawing on the HeavyChef findings about the power of community in supporting entrepreneurs’ success, the V&A Small Business Dialogues are designed to bring the V&A Waterfront’s small business community together to share and connect, building meaningful networks and learning from one another. Some highlights from the HeavyChef research that is foundational to the V&A Small Business Dialogues platform:

  • Year on year, “learning from other entrepreneurs” is the top-rated most valuable form of learning… yet 54% of entrepreneurs have never attended an entrepreneur event
  • 69% have less than 5 other entrepreneurs they personally know.

We’re setting out to help our SMMEs make valuable connections in this precious ecosystem.

Heather

administrator