“Follow your passion and success will follow you around like a shadow” Rakhi Khera who is a housewife (43-year-old) from Ashok Nagar a small town in Madhya Pradesh always had one thing in her mind and this to become a fashion designer. However, her family did not agree to her wish to become a fashion designer and so she had taken admission graduation in commerce.
Until 2013, Rakhi Khera remained a happy housewife in Gurugram, taking care of her family including her 2 kids. Her ultimate dream to become a fashion designer or do something unique and special in the fashion industry was still in her mind. Her husband backed her to step into maternity wear.
When Rakhi was pregnant, it was too tough to find comfortable clothes to wear at that time. In 2013, she made up her mind to rent out designer maternity apparel. Sadly, her business didn’t do very well. But Rakhi didn’t give up.
When Rakhi Khera creates her own fashion brand:
It all began in 2014, with an initial investment of Rs 5 lakh and then her life changed completely. She made up her mind to create her own fashion brand with a range of western wear and then created a company with maternity clothing for mums-to-be. It was when the idea of Abiti Bella Enterprises (meaning beautiful clothes in Italian) sparked.
When Rakhi became a top seller on Myntra
She started selling on e-commerce website Myntra, and she got tremendous success to make the ‘Abiti Bella’ a top seller in selling maternity wear brands. She had also launched a unique exclusive brand to Limeboard called Color Block in 2017.
Her brands are now available on all the online platforms and even now, she is getting the massive response from Myntra.
Rakhi revealed her revenue of 2018-2019 is Rs. 3.4 crore. Her next mission is to meet the target of Rs. 4.5 crore next year.
The only time Rakhi was challenged was during demonetization. However, it did have a benefit for Rakhi’s business on Myntra and other eCommerce portals too. The cash on delivery orders slowly decreased and her business became completely digital. What a transformation!
The kind of support Rakhi received from Walmart’s Women Entrepreneurship Development Programme (WEDP) was so good that it was one of the reasons for her steep bounce in her career. The program assisted Rakhi in empathising finance, logistics, digital marketing, and networking.
She also gained a wide range of experience in running a business by meeting other women entrepreneurs in the field.
The ambitious Rakhi is even planning to expand her brand to a wider scale and she believes she can do it. “In the future, I would like to expand my lifestyle range, increase the number of brands, and grow and scale.”