She has various professional instruments which she buys from Avenue Road.
These include implements like combs and scissors as well as machines like the hair-dryer.
Her experience and her skillful hands are her most important tool.
MATERIALS
She keeps stock of shampoos, conditioners, creams, nail-polish, etc.
CONSUMPTION
Her business consumes cosmetics.
Electricity is also consumed by the parlour.
The parlour business requires a lot of water.
Monetary consumption is also, of course, important.
SKILL
Her very specific trade skills were learnt in a beautician’s degree course in Doddaballapur.
Her two years’ experience at Cinderella Parlour at Dairy Cross also honed her skills and helped her start her business – she could easily find out what she needed and where to get it.
ECOLOGY
Her trade benefits the cosmetics industry.
She also had to spend money on hair-dryers and furniture.
She spent money on the poster outside her parlour.
She has to pay her electricity bills as also rent for the single-room.
She earns her money from women and girls living in Yelahanka New Town, near her parlour.
STRATEGY
Her strategy is her location. She carefully planned that her Beauty Parlour should be in such a stretch of Market Road where there are no other parlours – as most are concentrated either near Dairy Cross, or on the Reliance Fresh Road that branches off Market Road.
She asks her customers to inform their friends and acquaintances of the existence of her parlour.
She likes to talk to her customers and is very friendly.
Her prices are marginally lower than older businesses.
SPACE
Her one-roomed parlour on the first floor of a building on Market Road, behind a large poster that sports a smiling Aishwaria Rai.
GEOGRAPHY
Her shop is located on Market Road, the busiest Road in Yelahanka New Town.
She carefully planned that her Beauty Parlour should be in such a stretch of Market Road where there are no other parlours – as most are concentrated either near Dairy Cross, or on the Reliance Fresh Road that branches off Market Road.
EARNINGS
She is not the only earning member of her family.
Her husband has a saree business.
Her business makes her independent.
She just started her business so she hasn’t made much earning as of yet.
PEOPLE
Her target customers are women and girls who fall in or above a certain income group.
MONEY
A large amount of capital was needed to set up her shop which she invested from her saved earnings with some help from her husband.
Her assets include furniture and machines.
LIVING
Nirmala lives in Doddaballapur from where she passed out with a beautician’s degree two years ago and came to work in Cinderella Parlour, Dairy Cross. After two years’ experience she decided she was confident enough to go independent with her own business.
She has a small daughter who she leaves with her mother(who lives near her) when she comes to work. She leaves for home at 9 but recently has left at 7 – 7.30 because of the power-cuts.
Her husband is in the saree business, which apparently is a very common thing in Doddaballapur.
CUSTOMERS
She started her business 15 days ago, during which time she has had only two customers besides us, one of which told her she’d come later.
She says business is slow now in the Ashad Season, but next season of Shravan, a season of festivity she expects to have more customers.
Her parlour is the closest to our PG and therefore will attract a lot of Srishti students.
OUR EXPERIENCE TALKING TO HER
We went to her initially to ask her prices, as potential customers in the future as we lived very close. Then Shubhangi asked for a head bath during which she talked to us as a friend as told us about herself as we told her about ourselves.
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