Alice Hall: Pink Boutique

Alice Hall, 27
Company: Pink Boutique
Web: www.pinkboutique.co.uk

Struggling to pay bills in 2012, self-confessed “accidental entrepreneur” Alice Hall boldly decided to buy a pack of dresses for £90 and sell them online. When the first batch of dresses sold, she bought two more, then four more after that – little did she know that four years later her venture would be turning over more than £6m.

Today Hall’s online fashion brand Pink Boutique sells more than 2,000 dresses a day to women in 59 countries from its 30,000 sq. ft site in Newcastle. With a focus on competitively priced, limited edition, “super-glam” women’s clothing and party dresses, the company also sells everything from hair extensions to shoes and accessories. This stellar growth saw Pink Boutique garner a host of awards last year, including 13^th place in The Sunday Times Fast Track 100, as a result of its phenomenal 224% growth in two years, and Hall was named ‘Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year’ at the UK Private Business Awards.

The 50-employee Pink Boutique has also amassed an impressive social media following with more than 1.2 million fans on Facebook and Twitter alone. It’s clear that the company has access to an enormous potential market, and if past success is anything to go by, Hall clearly has the business chops to exploit it.