Gen Z Fashion Entrepreneur Takes Business to Next Level with Lazada

Nguyen Hong Nguyen Ha has always loved fashion. She spent her teenage years scrapbooking fashion looks from magazines, creating dresses for her dolls and getting inspired by style mavens from all over the world. For the 25-year-old, opening her own fashion store had always been her ultimate dream. “After graduating, I was eager to enter the fashion industry right away. I was working two jobs as a stylist and a look-book producer, which taught me so much about fashion trends and styles. I was still passionate about having my own clothing store, but I told myself to be patient and wait for the right opportunity.” 

After two years, Nguyen took a leap of faith and quit her jobs to pursue her dream and opened Remmus on Facebook and Instagram in 2018. Aimed at young and trendy girls looking for affordable but fashionable clothing items, the online store featured a curated selection of Nguyen’s own designs as well as items from other brands that reflected her free, edgy and unique style.

But at just 21 years old at the time, Nguyen faced her fair share of challenges with securing capital investments as well as with the operational side of running a one-woman business, including finding reliable suppliers and manufactures, finding customers and balancing her books.

While it was a steep learning curve, the Gen Z entrepreneur said her determination and youth helped lead her to success. “Being young means that I was willing to take a lot more risks. Every time I’m faced with a new challenge, I tell myself to learn as much as I can from the experience and try different approaches. What do I have to lose? In the end, it was my past experiences in the fashion industry and my ambition and drive that made Remmus take off,” she said.

Having spent her teenage years browsing Facebook and Instagram for the latest fashion trends, Nguyen combined her keen eye for style and her digital savviness to find success with her brand. Her clothing items soared in popularity among stylish and fashionable teenage girls in Vietnam. She has also regularly hosted livestream sessions, which has helped to showcase her products and engage with her audience.

Today, Remmus has expanded its presence to include a physical store in Ho Chi Minh City and has increased its inventory of fashionwear and accessories by 20-fold compared to when it first started. And instead of working by herself, Nguyen now has a team of 10 young employees to bring the store’s clothing items to her fashion-forward customers.

Once Remmus managed to build up its customer pool, Nguyen started to look for ways to expand her reach and scale her business. Drawn by Lazada’s ability to showcase products creatively and its interactive and engaging features, such as livestreaming technology LazLive as well as discount mechanisms and campaigns, Nguyen decided in April to explore the eCommerce platform as a new sales channel.

Since joining Lazada, Nguyen’s business has managed to double its monthly sales. Thanks to Lazada’s dedicated support teams, Nguyen says she can now optimize a significant proportion of her operation costs for human resources and stock management.

“I’m beyond thrilled to take advantage of all the support that Lazada provides for its new sellers, from promotional campaigns, livestreaming features, shipping initiatives, and most importantly, learning courses and a wonderful seller community to support newcomers,” she said.

As the icing on the cake, Nguyen was also recently announced at the lucky grand prize winner of VND200 million (USD8,500) from the “Start It Up with Lazada!” contest. The competition is part of Lazada’s regional seller onboarding initiative, which was launched in 2021. The onboarding initiative makes it easy for sellers to register in just three steps: new sellers only need to submit and enter a registered local mobile number, verify the number and set a strong password to complete their signup. To encourage new and existing retail business owners to digitalize and join eCommerce, the campaign organizes an annual lucky draw with cash prizes and marketing solutions worth up to USD10,000 to help jumpstart participants’ Lazada stores.

Nguyen plans to invest a large portion of her grand prize into bringing her clothes to more young girls, providing them with the best fashion choices via Lazada. Her winnings will also allow her to focus on product research and development to accelerate the growth of Remmus, she said, adding that joining Lazada was the boost that she was waiting for to take her business to the next level.