Issued on: 27 MARCH 2020
Wandia Gichuru
Wandia Gichuru is the co-founder and CEO of Vivo Woman, a Kenyan-owned clothing brand operating stores in shopping malls across the country, and Shop Zetu, an online store stocking African fashion brands.
“We started feeling the impact of the Coronavirus in early February, when a container of fabric that we had already paid for was stuck in China because the factories were all closed down. For a business our size, the impact of having our cash tied up and our supply chain interrupted is hugely disruptive.
“Since mid-March, the impact started to be felt on the ground. Traffic to stores greatly reduced and our revenues dropped over 70%. But regardless of revenues, our main concern was the safety of our staff and our clients – and therefore a week ago, we took the decision to close our stores and back-end operations (design, production, etc.) until the virus is contained and have asked our staff to stay home and stay safe. We are still able to process online orders at www.shopzetu.com, but even those have dropped significantly over the past two weeks. We have over 170 staff and a strong brand. We are determined to survive this crisis, save our jobs and keep the business alive.”
