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International Women’s Day on Letzshop:
These amazing women shopkeepers fill our hearts with joy!

To honour all the women shopkeepers, businesswomen and mompreneurs in Luxembourg, Letzshop has decided to dedicate a whole week to the determined, creative women with an entrepreneurial spirit. After the video interviews on Instagram, discover our blog article and our four shopkeepers, who enrich our daily lives with their creativity, passion and know-how.

We visited Laura Ferber, who launched hairshop.lu, the first hair care webshop in Luxembourg, Nancy and Angélique, the founders of the Unicorner Concept Store in Bereldange, Agna de Carvalho, creator and founder of the Merci Nature brand and shop in Luxembourg City and finally Cynthia Pavani, the manager of the children’s shoes and accessories shop Le Marquis de Lily in the capital.

To begin with, a little presentation…

Laura Ferber of Hairshop.lu was born into a four-generation family of Luxembourg hairdressers and has been passionate about beauty from an early age. ‘I’ve always loved making hair beautiful. Whether it’s to make it softer, fuller, smoother, curlier, shinier or stronger, it all depends on what you want. Everyone is unique, with their own individuality and specific needs that need to be respected and enhanced.’ So she came up with the idea of offering hair products tailored to each person’s specific needs on her webshop hairshop.lu.

Angélique and Nancy, the creators and founders of Unicorner Concept Store in Bereldange, are proud to present their concept of two shops in one on a 200m2 space, where each of the two women has her own unique corner with her own speciality, hence the name ‘Uni-corner’. ‘We offer a wide range of children’s shoes under the name MintMouse and a sophisticated selection of party items and balloons under the name The Party Ville. The boutique also offers seasonal accessories, gift ideas, little surprises for mums and much more. It’s all part of a colourful, fairytale world that appeals to the imagination of young and old alike,’ explain the two entrepreneurs.

Agna de Carvalho, the creator and founder of the Merci Nature brand and store in Luxembourg City, has always followed her desires: ‘I’ve been working in fashion since I was 14, initially as an actress-model. Then, when I was 19, I discovered my passion: textiles and image consultancy, with the aim of fulfilling my customers’ desires and making them happy and satisfied’.

Cynthia Pavani, manager of Le Marquis de Lily, grew up in the business run by her grandfather and parents. With her love of customer contact, the entrepreneur has always seen herself at ease in this field, and for the past 8 years she has been welcoming her little customers with great kindness and patience in her children’s shoe and accessories shop in the town centre.

 

Tell us about the creation of your company

In 2019, Laura Ferber launched hairshop.lu, the first hair care webshop in Luxembourg. ‘We noticed that customers were going to the hairdresser less and less often and I wanted to offer them the opportunity to buy professional shampoos with just a few clicks.’ The products on the site are ones that she likes to use herself. And when choosing products for hairshop.lu, she takes into account the ingredients, ethics and values of the different brands, giving preference to those that are cruelty-free, vegan and use natural ingredients. To reduce its impact on the environment, the Luxembourg-based company has decided to plant a tree for each order in collaboration with Graine de Vie, and is also looking to minimise waste by offering customers eco-responsible shipping of orders.

‘It was in 2017 that we joined forces to open our first shop in Beggen, a premises of just 50m2, before moving to Bereldange,’ explain Nancy and Angélique of the Unicorner Concept Store. ‘We met through the ‘Mumpreneurs Luxembourg’ group. We were each looking for a place to share our passion for the designer goods that are close to our hearts, to grow creatively and to create a unique place to make our customers dream and inspire them.’

‘At the start of my career, I was an employee and a year later I was able to open my own boutique in the heart of Lisbon’, Agna de Carvalho tells us. For personal and family reasons, she moved to Luxembourg in 2013 and started designing clothes for herself and her friends there. ‘It all started with a small workshop in my garage, to please myself and occupy my free time.’ Coming to Luxembourg wasn’t easy for Agna and she created this little ‘cocoon’ to please herself, far from thinking that it would be the start of Merci Nature. And it was in 2017, when she saw that people liked her creations, that she decided to create her own brand.

‘My grandfather ran a business and I used to go and help him even when I was a child,’ says Cynthia Pavani of Le Marquis de Lily. Then her parents took over, and naturally she worked with them… ‘I wanted to create a business dedicated to children’s shoes, because as a mother of 4 myself, it was always difficult to find a specialised shop.’ So she set off on the adventure of opening her own shop in the town centre, an adventure that has lasted for almost 8 years.

What difficulties did you encounter as a woman when setting up your own business?

‘I think the biggest challenges I faced were in terms of staff,’ explains Laura Ferber from hairshop.lu. Finding motivated and passionate people was a real challenge. And it was by maintaining exemplary service, offering personalised samples and super-fast delivery on all orders that Laura Ferber and her team were able to build up a loyal customer base. ‘I think word of mouth has helped us a lot and I have to thank our loyal customers who have contributed to our success,’ adds the young businesswoman.

According to Nancy and Angélique from Unicorner Concept Store, the two shopkeepers were lucky to have partners who supported them at all times. ‘I’ll always remember the sales rep who came to sell printers and kept asking me if the boss was in, even though I’d told him several times that I was the boss,’ recalls Angélique. When she decided to set up this business, she involved her whole family. ‘My partner and my children are directly affected by all my business decisions. I have to decide every day how much time I spend working and how much time I spend with my loved ones. The biggest difficulty is finding a balance between the two. I always feel that I’m disappointing one or the other’, says Angélique. For Nancy, the hardest part was starting to formalise what was initially a ‘hobby’ into a commercial activity. The struggle to be taken seriously, accessing capital and finding a business were all very difficult, and she couldn’t have done it without the encouragement and support of other women in similar situations, her business coach and her partner. ‘Once the business was up and running, my biggest challenge was the same as Angélique’s: finding a balance between work and private life. A balance that has not yet been fully achieved, but which is improving year on year,’ explains Nancy.

Agna de Carvalho didn’t have an easy start. ‘After leaving my job in administration, I devoted myself full-time to my project Merci Nature. And after a year of preparation, I was able to set up my own business and finally open my first boutique in the Rue des Capucins. She had to close the shop a few months later due to health problems. Thanks to the support of her customers, the City of Luxembourg and the Union Commerciale de la Ville de Luxembourg, she was able to continue her project by selling on markets. ‘In 2019, I set up shop on the first floor of a shoe shop. Then, in the middle of COVID, I moved to the premises where I am now, with a small garden at the back, which I landscaped to make a shady haven for customers during the summer. Plants are part of my life, they’re very precious,’ says Agna de Carvalho. ‘I’ve had to sacrifice a few things to get where I am today. A business is a daily challenge.’

‘Setting up a new business is obviously more difficult than taking over an existing one,’ explains Cynthia Pavani of Le Marquis de Lily. ‘Creating my own business was of course a challenge, but fortunately for me, the doors didn’t close because I’m a woman!’

What personal or professional achievements are particularly important to you and how have they influenced your career?

Laura Ferber was already very interested in web design at school, and working for L’Oréal in Brussels strengthened her desire to set up a company. In her opinion, without these experiences, she might not have thought herself capable of setting up an online business like hairshop.lu. ‘A second important step in my life was the birth of my son. The biggest challenge is to reconcile work and family life without feeling guilty about missing out on anything. I’m lucky to have found a partner who helps me a lot. However, it’s not always easy to break the codes established by previous generations,’ says the entrepreneur.

Angélique from Unicorner Concept Store explains her trials and tribulations: ‘The creation of the Facebook group and the non-profit organisation ‘Mumpreneurs Luxembourg’ really helped me to get out of my bubble and made me realise that I wasn’t alone in trying to make the leap from family to setting up my own business. I met a lot of women with the same ambitions, who gave me the energy and determination to carry on. Nancy has always had a weakness for decoration: ‘I’ve always loved organising and decorating events. I started working in the marketing and events department of several companies, and although I loved my job, I felt that something was missing. I wanted to have a bigger impact on people’s lives and happiness, because I had so many ideas and dreams in addition to my work, and that’s why I decided to embark on this adventure.’

Agna de Carvalho gained experience working for a designer in Lisbon to pay for training as she went along. Years later, she managed to create her own brand and keep it alive and growing, despite her illness, the closure of her first boutique, crises… ‘Everything I have in my life today I owe to myself, to my way of being. I built what I have with love, patience and perseverance, and as a mother, I’m very proud to have brought up my son alone for 14 years and to see the person he has become,’ she explains.

‘I think that if all the lights are green, you have to go for it and above all try and persevere,’ says Cynthia Pavani of Le Marquis de Lily. The entrepreneur works alone in her shop and can count on the support and help of her daughters on Saturdays. ‘For me, running a shop means a lot of work,’ she explains. ‘I love working for myself, but it also means that I only have a few rare weeks off during the year’. It’s a small sacrifice, but one she’s taking into account to make her dream come true.

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