Getting back to the bear basics
Having studied at Ananda College, two long time friends hatched a plan to start a company by chance while sitting for their CIMA exams. It was at this juncture that Thamara Kandabada and Pavithra Perera who are the co-founders of Bear Appeal began the clothing brand dedicated to providing bare essentials for the public of Sri Lanka.
Some of Bear Appeal’s offerings. Pic courtesy Bear Appeal
Having slowly built a loyal customer base and being recognised for their quality products and customer service, Bear Appeal is an online based clothing line that sells minimalist clothing wear that focuses mainly on menswear but a few products are unisex as well.
“Initially we wanted to do a mens brand of t-shirts, good quality stuff without the quirky odd designs. We were looking for it for ourselves. We thought that may be there is a market out there for this and we did an online survey and the results were very favourable so we just started off,” shares Thamara with the Mirror Magazine.
Pavithra joined in adding that they had just wanted to throw it out there and see what the response would be. “So far it has been pretty good as well. We thought it was a small niche at first but then it keeps expanding and we keep getting new customers everyday.”
Bear Appeal launched in May 2017 in Pavithra’s bedroom. The two friends had been in long discussions on starting a business together but nothing really panned out as Thamara was not ready to drop everything and start something new.
However, after some convincing, the two friends took the first few steps to create something people really wanted and liked. Both of them realised there was a huge gap in the market for minimalistic and simple t-shirts for men and Bear Appeal was born.
They started off by putting up their website and selling three t-shirts in blue, black and grey. In due time, they moved on to a better supplier and started making socks, boxer-briefs as well as expanding the product line.
“We have moved onto a office space, hired employees and we have two working at the office with us and two people who do our deliveries who work part-time. When it was just the two of us, it was super flexile but right now we have a responsibility towards our employees as well so we can’t take it easy,” Thamara shares on how the business has progressed within these two and a half years.
When asked about what they think sets them apart from other clothing brands as their styles are quite simple, they confidently reply saying that it is the customer service they provide that attracts the market.
“We wanted to focus on customer service, most of the companies here don’t have that. We wanted to make it easy as possible and provide customers with peace of mind. We offer free exchanges and refunds and things like that. Personally we are not shopaholics and we based our company on our perspective and what we would expect and how it should be,” says Pavithra.
The customer they had in mind was someone who didn’t want to browse around in a shop but who just wants to go online and place an order with a guarantee of a well-delivered product.
Thamara Kandabada and Pavithra Perera pic by Amila Gamage
At Bear Appeal the duo want to make sure that good customer service is provided from the moment that you go on to their website to the point that it gets delivered to you.
Even with their designs, they joke that it is because of their lack of fashion backgrounds that the clothing stays clean cut as they are. However, they place high importance on what the customers looks for as they conduct informal surveys and see what the customers request from them.
“Once we started, things just started rolling and we went with it. We don’t have the usual start-up story, we didn’t have to go bankrupt and come back.
We didn’t want to go really big,and most of all we were solving an actual problem as people were looking for this stuff and there is a market for it,” the two laugh and tell us about their success story. Watch their space for something big!
Check them out on https://bearappeal.com/ and visit their social media pages on FB and Instagram @bearappeal