>Love Your Fit

Carol Jolly has for many years been a fan of major chain Bravissimo, which sells bras and other lingerie, but importantly includes a bra fitting service.

So much so that in 2008, she went to work for them, training as a fitter and working in their Manchester store. At first hand, Carol saw the growing success of the chain and decided that she would set up in business herself in an out of city location. Following research, Carol chose the Millgate Centre in Bury as a location. Bury is a busy town centre attracting shoppers from a wide area and is home to the world famous Bury market. On market days, footfall increases enormously and Carol’s shop is ideally positioned to take advantage of this.

The main issues for Carol in setting up the business were initially finding a good but affordable location and then raising the finance necessary to get the business off the ground. Stock was a major expense and good retail locations don’t come cheap. Although Carol did have some finance of her own, she needed a bank to back her and provide extra funds.

The first bank approached turned down the proposal but, undaunted, Carol approached her personal bank who were very happy to support her. Her Business Plan was approved and funds made available to support the launch of the business. This meant that the business was able to start up properly funded including the cost of premises, reasonable levels of stock, funds for marketing and promotion and enough working capital for the early days whilst the business builds up.

Love Your Fit opened in mid October. The weekly forecast for the bra fitting service was 30 per week but on the first Saturday of trading, 58 fits were done! Since then, trade has been steady during the week and excellent at weekends. The Christmas trade was particularly buoyant.

Sales in the period up to the end of December have been excellent,
far exceeding my original forecast.

says Carol.

Customers are delighted with the service and the choice available.
I have even been called the Gok Wan of the North West!

Love Your Fit is now being promoted on Tower FM to get the message out to as wide an audience as possible.

BBV advisers have been tremendous in advising and supporting me right from day one. With their help, the business has started on a sound footing and continues to go from strength to strength.