Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Alizee Hazan. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alizee, appreciate you joining us today. What’s something crazy on unexpected that’s happened to you or your business

Oh man, this is a loaded question. As a business owner, whether positive or negative, it’s easy to over analyze and/or become emotionally affected by pretty much every thing that happens with your business. Sometimes, the happenings are small and you realize they are not as significant as they seemed in the moment. However, other times they can be incredibly significant and create a lasting impact on many facets of your business.

One of the craziest things that has happened to EKZO was simultaneously losing all of our wholesale accounts at the exact same time. It was literally overnight, and we were clearly not the only ones affected by this situation as it was due to the start of the pandemic, but boy was it difficult to overcome, adapt, and pivot in a positive way. At the time, we had been on a 6 month push to grow our wholesale side of the business and obtain placement in as many retailers as possible. We were having good success and feeling very strong about the direction of our business, and then all of the sudden we lost over 50 accounts at the exact same time!

At the time, we were feeling pretty defeated and distraught as it was difficult to look past the monetary loss we would incur. However, in hindsight, it was actually a blessing in disguise for our business. Because we were so focused on retail placement, we had neglected our direct to consumer side of the business and let our web traffic and sales decline. After losing the wholesale accounts, we decided to revamp our website and make a strong push to drive business back to our core customers.

The biggest lesson we learned throughout this ordeal is that every issue, no matter the magnitude, has a positive spin hiding somewhere amongst the madness. Stay calm, breathe, find the good, and then move on.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hello, I am Alizee Accomando and I am originally from Brussels, Belgium. I moved to San Diego in 2010 and immediately fell in love with the culture, people, beauty, and lifestyle of this awesome city. Coming from Europe, there were a lot of things that I was accustom to that I quickly learned were not as readily available here in CA and the United States. Subtle nuances such as different food, music, dinner hours, and more were easily adaptable. However, one issue that I was not able to solve was the lack of clothing made from 100% natural fibers. More importantly, if I was able to find these items, they were either incredibly expensive or had a very basic cut and style. I simply could not find cool, chic, comfortable clothing that was made from 100% natural fibers.

So the writing was on the wall, and I went for it. I created EKZO to offer people an affordable option of clothing and accessories made from hand selected 100% natural fibers. What does this mean? We do not incorporate polyester, spandex, or any other harmful fibers in our products.

Interestingly enough, my ancestry has history in the fabric and garment industry dating back to the late 40’s and early 50’s in Congo, Africa. My grandfather was a supplier of African Wax Fabric to many of the communities in Congo and throughout Africa. Although I was aware of this throughout my life, I never intended to pursue an opportunity in this industry, as originally I was more of an artist and graphic designer than a fashion designer. However, once EKZO was established I knew I wanted to honor and incorporate this into my business. At EKZO, we utilize Wax Fabric (even some original pieces from the 40’s and 50’s!) to subtly accent our pieces. This adds a bit of history and our own unique style to each and every product we produce.

Our mission is to help reduce the carbon footprint of the global fashion industry by offering consumers stylish, comfortable, premium quality clothing and accessories all from 100% natural fibers. We also incorporate sustainable packaging and other eco-friendly initiatives into our business allowing us to all but eliminate waste on our outgoing shipments.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I hate to keep bringing Covid up, but it was such a unique moment that had such a massive impact on everyone and every business regardless of size. As I briefly mentioned earlier, our pivot to focus on direct to consumer sales immediately after lockdown went into effect was one Covid related pivot. However, another happened after the world was re-opened and things were back to “normal”.

As you may know, global logistics, shipping, and all things transportation were a nightmare immediately after Covid. This took a huge toll on our bottom line as rising costs and lost subsidies ate away at our profit margins. We needed to find a solution that helped mitigate the impact and we needed to find it fast. Our solution was to offer private, or “white label” branding on our beach towels. These products had been out best selling wholesale product for many years, so we created a program that offered custom tags, screen printing, or embroidery that then repositioned these products to be feasible as a corporate gifting solution. How did this mitigate our shipping costs? Well we decided to do large minimum orders for this program and really focused at selling to larger clients (i,.e. universities, construction companies, finance companies, etc.). We were able to build our increased shipping cost into the pricing package for this program while still offering the client a discount by requiring larger minimum order quantities.

Thankfully, these response was really great and we had immediate success selling these custom branded towels. And it wouldn’t be an interview without a pitch, right? So if you know any businesses that may benefit from a unique, fun, practical product for their client/employee gifting, definitely let us know!

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Quite honestly, word of mouth. We have grown our business completely organically meaning no paid advertising. We pride ourselves on having a really great product, and once people purchase they become customers for life. Our customer retention rate is over 90%, and a lot of this is attributed to gift purchases. We always ask how a new customer heard about us, and 9/10 is because someone bought them their first EKZO product as a gift and they loved it.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ekzo.co
• Instagram: @ekzo.co
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/ekzoclothing