Vivien of Holloway designs and sells modern clothing inspired by the glamour of years gone by. When the brand’s previous factory wasn’t producing designs quickly enough, founder Vivien Wilson needed to find new partners to get her business back on track. PayPal’s cash flow capabilities enabled her to pay them faster and keep her online clothing store stocked.
For small businesses like Vivien of Holloway, cash flow is king. If their website or store doesn’t have designs available, customers can’t buy them and the brand loses out on valuable income. At the height of COVID, Vivien’s factory struggled to keep up with orders, and had difficulties delivering product and leaving a direct impact on her business. “I didn’t actually realise how bad it was until a couple of people said to me ‘oh everything’s always out of stock,’” she says. “That really did cut me like a knife.”
It's taken about two years for the company to recover from the damage of this, Vivien says. “But I do believe when one door closes, another one flies open.”
Now, with two new local partners – and PayPal’s quick and secure payments – she can make regular payments that help keep items in stock online. “We could get stock everyday as it came off the machines as long as we could keep the cash flow going,” she says. “The speed at which you can get your money out of PayPal enables [us] to pay [our] factories quickly. So, it gave us some sort of security while we rebuilt our brand.”
PayPal also allowed her to extend flexible payment options to customers – opening up the opportunity to pay for products through Pay in 3*, which spreads the cost of their purchase over three payments. The first payment is made at the time of purchase with the next two payments made automatically on the same date over two months.
Vivien Wilson, owner, Vivien of Holloway
Vivien of Holloway has always been powered by a passion for beautiful clothing rather than passion for a big business. As a child, Vivien watched old films with her mum, admiring the intricate detail of the costumes. A few years later, she’d decorate her family’s garden, hang clothing up on the drying line and invite friends over to pretend to shop the wares.
Before long, Vivien was spending her pocket money at charity shops and altering clothes with her grandmother’s sewing machine to make them fit. “I started making clothes for my figure and women with my shape,” she says. “My childhood dream was to have a dress shop.”
That dream eventually became reality, but perhaps in a different order than Vivien’s younger self would believe. Vivien started selling designs on eBay, using PayPal to manage online payments before a friend helped her build her own website. “PayPal made it very easy for people to shop online,” she says. “I’ve been using PayPal for 20 years now.”
From there, Vivien turned her workspace above a vintage motorcycle shop in Camden into her HQ, storing and selling her inventory. Once people started turning up there to buy clothes because the address was listed on eBay, it was time to invest in a physical store location.
Vivien remembers how one year she was in Texas walking through a car show, and this woman said, ‘I love your outfit’. “I gave her my card and she just looked and went, ‘yeah, I know this brand.’” With that level of global recognition, Vivien realised it was time for her vision for a brick-and-mortar location, opening a shop in north London in 2009.
The shop was a success and ran for 15 years, with people visiting from all over the world. But when the lease was up, Vivien decided it was time for her business to start a new chapter. After all, the Vivien of Holloway brand blossomed thanks to its online presence. “I don't know if we could have built what we did without the Internet,” she says. “Social media was a great way of bringing people into the shop. But now we have online shopping, we have eBay, we have PayPal. There's not really a massive need to have an actual shop.”
Using a single payment provider like PayPal has given Vivien the flexibility to run the business how she chooses.
When she was managing the transition to the brand’s new factories, the speed that the business could withdraw money from PayPal played a crucial role in bouncing back. “We tried many payment providers, but then we realised that PayPal offers many options,” she says. “We really don’t need lots of providers when PayPal has plenty of ways of paying. As soon as we had made stock and sold it, we could get our money out and reinvest it in the next lot of stock.”
These capabilities make the day-in, day-out routine of a small business owner a bit more palatable. “I didn’t get into this to run a business,” Vivien says. “I don’t like running the business. I don’t like being in charge of people. I just want to make clothes. I want to make beautiful things. It’s what makes me happy.”
Learn more about how PayPal’s payment solutions can help your small business do more: https://www.paypal.com/uk/business.
Simply complete the form to receive valuable info and actionable tips for your business. Plus, you'll hear from fellow merchants who use PayPal to help reach their goals.
If you accept cookies, we'll use them to improve and customise your experience and enable our partners to show you personalised PayPal ads when you visit other sites. Manage cookies and learn more