Groomed for success – Alumni Stories, Shaun Purewal
If you watch QVC you may have seen 2014 Business Management alumnus Shaun Purewal, who is rapidly making a name for himself in the luxury male grooming market with his company, Debonair For Men. Shaun appeared on the popular shopping channel in September of this year.
Business has always been a passion of Shaun’s and he came to York St John in 2011 to study Business Management. ‘I have family in York and know the city very well so it was a natural choice for me,’ he said. ‘One of the things I really benefited from during my time at York St John was my placement year which gave me valuable experience and really helped me understand a lot of the pressures small businesses face. It reaffirmed my ambition that starting my own business was something I really wanted to do’
So why the luxury male grooming market? Shaun explained that personal experience was one of his inspirations behind the brand. “I drew on my experiences as a youngster watching my dad shave, as well as my quest looking for quality products for my own beard. My appearance is very important to me. I know I am not alone; for lots of men, particularly young men like me, their beard is a very important part of how they look and feel. I also felt that there was a significant gap in the market when it came to high end male grooming products.’
Shaun has put a huge amount of work into developing his products and establishing his brand over the past four years. ‘After developing and launching my first products with the support of my family and friends, I began to work out of a kiosk in a shopping centre in Derby as well as putting together a strong brand and website presence that told the story of Debonair For Men and what we were trying to achieve,’ he said. ‘I was keen to try and promote the products as much as possible and QVC is an incredible opportunity to get your products in the front of the public. It was a two year process from the start of the application to appearing on the channel and when we received the letter inviting us on we knew it would be a huge turning point for the business. Male grooming shows no signs of slowing down and Debonair For Men’s products have been purposely created to fit a need in the male grooming market. Getting onto any channel, let alone QVC, is a challenge which only a few products out of thousands achieve, so given our size and that we are fairly new in the market this was amazing.”
So after a successful appearance on QVC, what’s next for Shaun and Debonair For Men? ‘We’re delighted that our relationship with QVC will be continuing after they put in a re-order of our products, and we’ll be back on on the channel in November and December which is great for us, especially as it’s right in the lead up to Christmas. Looking at the bigger picture we know that a lot of companies are starting to jump on the band wagon of men’s grooming products, but we feel we’re now really well placed as an established business already working with the right retailers to continue to be successful going forwards. Our products are in a range of salons, spas and hotels now, but we’re very much focused on retail.’
If you’d like to find out more about Debonair for Men and explore their product range why not take a look at their website.
