Fashtraker: Connects Trusted And Sustainable Fashion Brands To Its Customers Online, Meet
Wunmi Akinsola, Founder Of Fashtraker

Wunmi Akinsola, Nigeria fashion entrepreneur who is the founder and CEO of Fashtraker.

She is a leading fashion brand creating a community that connects trusted and sustainable fashion brands to its customers online.

She first ventured into the fashion industry in 2008 when her siblings co-founded a fashion brand called Virgos Lounge, a London-based womenswear brand, where she worked as a brand coordinator, being involved in almost all levels of the business’s value chain, especially the fulfilment part. In 2014, she monitored transactions worth over £1,000,000.

In 2015, she graduated from the University of Kent, England, where she studied fashion and textile. She turned her final year project into her own company, called Pearls and Portrait, a B2B fashion outlet that designs and outsources production to manufacturers in China and India, then sells the ready-made clothes to businesses across the world.

After two years and a lot of financial and strategic mistakes, she decided to pursue a master’s degree in entrepreneurship and innovation. It was here that she got a better grip on how to run a business, especially a tech-enabled enterprise.

During and after the programme, she interned at a couple of consulting firms in the UK but she was keen on relocating to Nigeria.

Coming back to Nigeria, she knew she wanted to work for a company doing what ASOS is doing in Europe, but none existed or was big enough to hire a London returnee. After a while, she was hired as a project manager for the 2018 Bridal Fashion Week in Lagos. The event was a success but nothing happened for Akinsola after that, so she went back to the UK.

It wasn’t long after she moved back that she got headhunted by Jumia to lead its Women’s Fashion Category. At Jumia, she had access to the core of the African fashion scene and a clear understanding of the value chain—its challenges and opportunities. There and then, she knew she didn’t want to only be part of the solution but lead the pack of young people building a thriving fashion economy for Africa.

She left Jumia and started Fashtracker in February 2020; as established fashion entrepreneur, she provided a pan-African marketplace for the continent’s fashion.

Fashtracker was originally built to cater for markets within the continent—essentially what ASOS did in Europe in its early days. Fashtracker initially wanted to make buying and selling of African fashion easy for Africans within the continent, but that changed when more of its traction came from outside the continent.

On Fashtracker, fashion designers and retailers can list their products for customers to find them and buy a seamless process that gives the platform a small commission on every completed transaction.

The fashion entrepreneur, Akinsola said the company has about 33 brands, though some of them are going through offline due diligence and haven’t yet been listed on the platform. About 30 brands are currently on the platform and have completed thousands of dollars worth of transactions.

Wunmi Akinsola is fulfilling increasing orders within the continent and beyond, particularly in Europe and America where Ankara gowns and other African print dresses are popular among non-Africans.

Source: Espact.com

Email: elora.akpotosevbe@yahoo.com