The daughter of one of the region’s most successful retail entrepreneurs has now become a businesswoman in her own right with the launch of her online fashion boutique.
Jenny Peng Gillender has created Peak Boutique, an online fashion store offering a range of carefully selected women’s clothing and accessories from a range of affordable brands. New products are added to the site daily.
Peak Boutique, based in Newcastle, was launched earlier this month, and within eight hours of the start of trading, the website peakboutique.co.uk had received 8,000 hits. In its first month of business, orders have been placed from as far afield as Hong Kong and Australia, with regular orders coming from the United States.
The 25-year-old, who has an MBA from Newcastle University Business School, has overseen every aspect of the creation of Peak Boutique, which has been in the planning for over a year. It operates from newly-acquired premises in Fenham.
Peakboutique.co.uk, which was designed by Jenny, uses two of her school friends as its models, one of whom – Kallula Dixon – is Miss Philippines UK, as well as being Jenny’s website design manager at AYO Digital.
The young retail entrepreneur is following in the footsteps of her father, Wilf Gillender, who owned the master franchise of Body Shop in the North East, as well as for the whole of France, and was also instrumental in the creation of the brand’s Body Shop Direct division.
She also follows the lead of her brother Nicky, who last year took over the popular Sale Pepe restaurant in Jesmond, and which is now thriving after a full refurbishment and re-launch.
Jenny – who has already taken on her first member of staff, general manager Amy Law - said: “I have always wanted to launch a fashion business, but I’m very grateful to my dad for encouraging me to get my qualifications first so that I could fully understand all aspects of business. He has taught me so much about how to be successful and has given me so much support and advice.
“Already, we have got off to such a brilliant start, and are seeing orders and regular visitors to the site from all over the world.
“While there are a lot of online fashion retailers, I think we are really standing out from the crowd through our attention to detail. Our website is totally bespoke and designed by me personally, we are the only retailer of our kind to offer a loyalty scheme, and we pay special attention to the quality of our packaging.
"Feedback from customers has been fantastic, and we are delighted with how our first few weeks in business have gone.”
Jenny has been supported legally in the creation of Peak Boutique by Newcastle law firm Sintons. Christopher Welch, Partner in the Company and Commercial department, who has acted for the Gillender family for more than 20 years, led the team who completed the work.
She also secured funding for her venture from Barclays.
Christopher Welch said: “Jenny has spent a long time planning and working on the launch of her own online fashion store, and her hard work is now reaping rewards. She has identified ways of overcoming some key shortcomings by her competitors, and has ensured Peak Boutique offers customers an all-round positive experience.
“The business is ideally positioned to become one of the key players in online women’s fashion, and we are very pleased to have been able to support Jenny in its creation.”