Rallicia Lawrence – Creating her own Paradise

IF you ask Rallicia Lawrence what’s the most important lesson she has learnt throughout her life, she will tell you that, ‘No matter how many books you read, you will never be truly intelligent if you are not street smart’. And if you happen to talk to the affable young woman from the tough inner-city community of Parade Gardens for long enough, you will understand why she thinks so. While this university graduate has done her fair share of ‘book learning’, she will tell you that it’s the skills that she picked up from the streets of Southside that she is using to create her own paradise.

“After graduating from The Queen’s School, I supported myself through a first degree at The University of the West Indies with my online-based store,” she shared with All Woman. “But after graduating with a bachelor of science in management studies — marketing and human resource, I couldn’t get a job in that area.”

With financial obligations looming overhead, the product of a single-mother-headed household decided to reach for lower hanging fruit until she could secure better for herself. She started working at a call centre in the Corporate Area to help make ends meet.

“Despite the success of Chan’s Couture that put me through school, I felt the need to exploit the underserved lingerie market and I started to focus on my new venture, Panty Paradise in 2015 while employed at a Kingston-based business processes outsourcing (BPO) centre,” she reflected. “I found that the lingerie market was an underserved niche sector of the clothing market, so I decided to target it.”

In the five years since her new start-up, Lawrence has not only managed to grow her clientèle and catalogue significantly, but she is ticking off milestones from her list as she goes along.

“One of my biggest challenges when I started out was transportation,” she recalled. “Because my business is based online, it was very costly and time consuming for me to meet customers and deliver goods to them. I have since managed to purchase my first car, and it makes things a bit easier.”

Though she is no longer working in the BPO industry, Lawrence still holds a corporate job to supplement her livelihood and fledgling business. She maintains that even with her degree, she would not have become the successful entrepreneur that she is without her ‘street smarts’.

“It’s really how you deal with people,” she said. “Whether you’re working in an office, a call centre, or trying to sell lingerie, you have to know how to deal with the people you serve.”

Lawrence admits that plying her wares after a long day of administrative tasks at the office can be tiring, but she draws motivation from her mother’s persistence as a single mother raising three children on a teacher’s salary.

“The most rewarding part of all this for me is being able to help my family and to give my children, when I have them, a jump start for a better future,” she said positively. “My friends, clients and supporters from my community motivate me the most.”

While the COVID-19 pandemic has put a damper on most businesses, Lawrence is pleased to report that it’s still sunny in Panty Paradise.

“Because we were always online-based, it hasn’t really affected our store. I just encourage more online transactions instead of payment upon delivery. Besides, women always want to feel sexy and comfortable in their skin regardless of what’s happening outside. Maybe now even more than ever they might be considering getting some new lingerie, seeing that they may be spending more time at home,” she smiled.

But, like the rest of us, Lawrence is also hoping the crisis will be under control soon so that she can return to life as she knows it.

“I really miss going outside as I like, especially the beach,” she said longingly. “In fact, I had the beach in mind when I named the lingerie store Panty Paradise.

Though she currently serves clients across the entire island virtually, using couriers for rural and western deliveries, Lawrence hopes to someday have franchises all over Jamaica.

“It has always been my dream from when I was a little girl to be a business owner,” she said. “I didn’t know how I would do it, or what kind of business, but I knew that I would have to do it from scratch. So that’s what I’m doing. I’m making a paradise for myself.”