AMA: Alexander Amosu, founder of Lux Afrique Boutique

Alexander Amosu is a founder and designer with a keen eye for luxury and innovation. When the world came to a standstill during Covid, he saw an opportunity - not just for his business but for an entire market that had long been overlooked.

In this interview, Alexander shares the journey of building Lux Afrique Boutique, the challenges of bringing high-end brands to Africa, and the lessons learned along the way.

Hi Alexander! Could you share the story behind your startup and the inspiration that led to its creation?

The idea behind Lux Afrique Boutique came about during Covid. We’ve been running a concierge company for the last eleven years, looking after approximately 500 high-net-worth individuals across Africa.

When Covid hit, everything was grounded, and our clients couldn’t travel. We realised that, even though they were at home, they still wanted to get luxury goods for events like birthdays, Christmas, or Valentine's Day.

We had an arrangement with some luxury brands, where we’d go behind the scenes, pick up the items, and ship them to our clients. So, despite the stores being closed, we were still able to provide access to certain brands by going through the back door.

As demand for this grew among our concierge members, I thought that this could be a problem many people across Africa were facing.

I reached out to Frederico Macti, who at the time was the CEO of Net-a-Porter, and told him about my idea of launching the first African online e-commerce platform selling luxury goods into Africa.

He loved the idea, and after several discussions, we formed a reseller partnership agreement with Net-a-Porter, giving us access to their brands. And that’s how we got started.

What were the initial challenges you faced and how did you overcome them?

One of the biggest challenges we faced was convincing luxury brands to work with us.

Most brands didn’t understand the African market and assumed that if people wanted luxury goods, they should travel to Europe to buy them. So to secure brand partnerships, we had to design a model where we entered wholesale agreements with the brands.

Essentially, if a product cost £100, we would agree to buy it for £50 and sell it for £100, so our customers would get the same pricing as if they were walking into a shop in Europe.

But the biggest hurdle was convincing brands that there was a market for luxury goods locally. Most African territories don’t have luxury brand stores, and only a few countries in Africa have luxury brands. That was a major challenge for us at the start.

Could you share a challenging moment or setback in your journey, how you navigated through it, and the lessons you learned?

One of the biggest setbacks we faced was related to payment gateways. Early on, one of the banks we worked with labeled us as high-risk because we were dealing with customers in Africa.

Then, one of our long-time payment gateways shut us down, saying we were high-risk as well, which meant we couldn’t accept credit card payments or use any payment systems.

It was a tough moment, but we had to get creative.

We explored other payment solutions in territories that are often considered “high risk.” A lot of these institutions are concerned about chargebacks and fraud, and when you mention Africa, these concerns get amplified.

The lesson here was that we needed to be flexible and proactive in finding payment solutions. We couldn’t rely solely on traditional systems and had to adapt quickly.

Speaking of "systems", what tech are you totally reliant on?

We’re totally reliant on our shopping platform. It’s a core part of our operations. If the platform were to go down, we wouldn’t be able to conduct any business.

While we could migrate to another platform if necessary, we rely entirely on this one for our e-commerce business. It’s essential for our daily operations.

If you could only choose one metric to help guide your business success, what would it be and why?

If I could only choose one metric, it would be the customer base. Our business is built on people buying from us, and the more people who buy from us, the more successful we are.

I envision one day being able to say that we have one million customers who consistently buy from us, and I believe that’s very achievable.

This would be the key metric I’d focus on to measure and guide our success.

Aim high! Could you tell us a bit more about your team?

We have a great team. Most of our team members are based in South Africa, but we also have people in London, Nigeria, and Dubai. I would describe them as a great bunch of people with incredible mindsets and diverse skill sets that contribute to the success of the company.

My motto has always been that you’re only as good as your team.

The people you hire need to reflect your ambition, vision, and the direction of the company.

So far, we’ve been growing aggressively. We're a small team, but as the demand for the business grows, we plan to add more people to help support that growth.

I’m working on finding a way to bring the team together in the future to celebrate our successes, educate each other, and plan ahead.

Do you have a share scheme in place?

Yes. The success of the company isn’t just down to me - it’s down to every single member of our team.

If you're part of Lux Afrique Boutique, you will eventually receive shares in the company, for free, as a reward for your contribution to the company’s success.

The share scheme is very important to me because I want everyone who has helped build the organisation to benefit from it.

It’s part of our culture - when you join our team, we offer shares as a way of including everyone in our growth.

Fantastic! Final question, if you could only listen to one album for the rest of your life, what would it be?

If I could only listen to one album for the rest of my life, it would definitely be a Michael Jackson album. His music is timeless and always filled with energy.

I could listen to his songs over and over again, and they would never get old. Michael Jackson’s music is something that stays with you forever.

Thanks so much for your time, Alexander. We wish you and your team every bit of success!