Jaytex Store (Start of Clothing Shop)
In June 1969, the whole family came to Nairobi. His father was a partner in a company known as Paper Bags Limited with 25% shares, his father started looking after their business. Meanwhile, Sobhag was applying for various jobs.
He received a job offer from the UK with the wages of £17.50 per week. It was a well-paid job for that period and hence he started the arrangements of coming to the UK. He received a voucher from his employer to travel to the UK, but unfortunately, with all the things going around, Sobhag lost his passport.
He knew his father would not be happy to hear about the lost passport, he took the things in his hands and visited the British High Commission to continue his application.
As the application was taking time to get approved, he came across a garment store for sale. The shop name was Kantilal Store, he bought the shop in December 1969 and gave the new name – Jaytex Store. With very less knowledge of garments, he was told that if he can make 45,000 shillings every month, it will be enough to look after the family. But fortunately, the shop turned very busy and some days their sales crossed 40,000 shillings per day. As the shop business was booming, he got more interested in the business and bringing more varieties to the customers. He also learned more about Fashion. He converted the place into a self-selection shop, as it was a new concept and out of tradition, the place made a good reputation.
As time passed, he consistently travelled to the UK, followed the Fashion trend and bought designer clothes to showcase in his shop and the window display. He came to know about Denim material and its demand in the UK market. He was the first person to sell denim material in masses in Nairobi city and the neighbouring common markets. He brought new systems to work in his shop, as there were no CCTVs, he attached concave mirrors in the corners to keep an eye on the whole shop. For the customers to have a good time while seeing clothes, he bought a tape recorder to play music. He also made a system of stock check to control and tally the figures, this allowed accurate track of the sales and the number of products sold in a month. He also made strict rules for his staff, if the stock went missing from their allocated section, it was deducted from their wages. On the positive side, he also encouraged his staff with commission on sales.
Slowly the staff learned their duties and responsibilities and Sobhag can focus on new opportunities. He slowly managed to buy 3 more shops known as Tito, Titpit and Wonder wear. Things were going well for him, all his shops in very prime areas. For the business, he started giving advertisements of the sales on the front page of the newspapers.
On the day of sales, there use to be a huge queue of customers in the morning outside the store waiting for the store to open. The denim jeans was the game-changer forhis business, Sobhag invested more on the advertisements in the Cinemas and the Articles in the newspapers. For the pictures of products, he hired models and scenic locations to capture the beauty of the clothes.
