For a young local entrepreneur the dream to run her own business in Lotopa has come true but it wasn’t a walk in the park for the 24-year-old Vaivase-Uta woman. 

Va’alotu Marjourie Meredith is the owner of Boss Palace which is a jewelry shop at Lotopa which recently celebrated its one-year anniversary.

Looking back on her journey over the last 12 months, she realised that she never planned to open a jewelry shop of her own.

And the COVID-19 global pandemic also affected her previous business operations early last year.

“I started a makeup artist brand in 2018, that was my first business and it was going great,” Va’alotu told Samoa Observer.

“Just last year around early May, we experienced a lockdown and with COVID most of my June-July weddings were postponed.

“Because I didn't have that source of income it just sort of pushed me to pursue other hobbies and dreams I had.”

And desperate times can bring out the best in entrepreneurship based on one’s love for fashion and jewelry, which is how she started considering a jewelry shop as a second business option.

And Va’alotu has not looked back since making the decision to go down that path and on 29 June this year celebrated her shop’s one year anniversary.

“I have a really good friend of mine who had a shop and she asked me if I would like to come over to Loralei and just sell from there to start from,” she said.

And moving to Loralei Samoa was also another big step for her business’ journey.

So while her business was run out of Loralei Samoa, she would make an average of $2000 tala a week and during peak demand could even generate up to $5000 tala in income.

It was at that juncture when she decided to consider other business portfolios such as fashion and design, which she said would have complimented her hobby for designer clothing.

“I started working on designing clothes such as beach skirts last December so that was my side project so some of the income I got from the jewelry I set aside in a separate account for my clothing line,” she said. 

“The whole idea was as soon as I open the shop I am gonna launch my third business which is the clothing line still under the Boss brand.”

Today she has set her eyes on achieving those big goals and for every profit she makes from her current business, she sets aside 90 per cent of it to enable her to have her own shop.

She now has her jewelry shop at Lotopa called Boss Palace which opened to customers on the date of the business’ one-year anniversary. 

And Va’alotu believes other women can also be successful in business and by identifying silver linings in a time of crisis.

“I think women in business that society and our culture are slowly adapting to it and I want to encourage women to pursue their purpose, to hold on and take advantage of every disadvantage [situation],” she said. 

“With Covid being a disadvantage for others it started the rise of what is now a much bigger brand [in Boss Palace].”