Getting your regular beauty treatments such as that monthly neck and back massage or that last-minute manicure is something of the past for many South Africans as the country entered a nationwide lockdown on 26 March 2020 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
After working for companies from the likes of Old Mutual, Woolworths and Pearson, Thuli Hlongwane ventured out into the entrepreneurial market and launched two apps, Prim-U and Primlancer which connects people to the beauty industry.
Prim-U is an online booking hub that connects beauty entrepreneurs in the industry to customers and hundreds of salons, spas, hotels and guests houses countrywide, but with a business model operating solely on physical contact, Prim-U's consumers and beauticians were unable to operate since the start of the nationwide lockdown, which started on 26 March 2020.
We chat to Thuli Hlongwane, the managing director of Prim-U, to find out the challenges she's had during coronavirus pandemic and the impact it's had on the business...
Maintaining social distancing during the lockdown period has certainly restricted the number of times people come into close contact with each other and limiting physical contact completely. Our business model was operating on physical contact only.
We started investigating reliable and trusted suppliers for products to sell on the platform. We also worked quickly on improving the technology to respond to the challenges and find alternative ways of staying close without physical contact with our clients.
What's the biggest challenge you are facing during this pandemic?Network connections; availability of data is a reality. A lot of businesses have moved online. Communicating with our service providers online has been difficult as most of them are not able to connect online with the platform.
We need monetary and non-monetary resources to recover post the pandemic quickly. This will be mainly for training and supporting our service providers to prepare in terms of tools and information in the "new" world. From a platform perspective, vetting and readiness measures are essential.
Our service providers are independent businesses and not full-time employees. However, we are feeling the pain that they and the rest of our country is feeling right now.
We are using our social media platforms to communicate with our customers. #PrimuAtHome
We have been using our social media platforms to give survival tips and tricks during the lockdown.
The on-demand economy in the beauty industry will be in full force. Most of our customer demands will be online for services and product purchases.
✨✨GIVEAWAY✨✨
— Prim-U (@Prim_UApp) April 24, 2020
We're giving away a future massage appointment through Prim U app for you AND 1 of your most supportive friends.
For more information click on the link below. https://t.co/QZx6FhuTpk#LockdownSA#womenintech #Entrepreneurship#GirlTalkZA #FlattenTheCurve pic.twitter.com/XfFzw7uGNs
Now is the time to innovate and experiment. What is Prim-U doing?We are working on growing our partnerships to test our technology assumptions. It is also the right time for us to understand and be ready for the changes in consumer behaviours and demands.
We must work on technological advancements as rapidly as possible as we move forward to the 4IR era.
