Journey with fashion accessories to Situ Medura

The Lover's story of success

by Aditha Dissanayake

Psychologists believe to be in love is the normal state of every human being. So, when did you first fall in love? When did you let love sweep you off your feet? When exactly did everything else begin to matter less and your feelings for each other more? And when exactly did you wish to reflect your inner fire with a gift?

When? If you are a teenager, or someone who believes in being "forever young", probably the answer is "right now", in which case you should step into The Lover, the next time you go shopping.

Rohan Perera says he ventured into selling fashion accessories when he launched 'The Lover' two years ago because there was a world trend for them at the time. Having worked in the family owned garment business for over four years Rohan, with an inborn sensitivity for the slightest market nuances, had realised with the increase in the price of gold there will be a good demand for non-gold accessories in the local market. He had left the inward looking garment business and tuned to the new trend and begun to market knick-knacks mainly aimed for teenagers (and everybody else who refuses to grow old.)Thus the name "The Lover" because love and youth go together like horse and carriage.

True to the name, the origins of The Lover stems from a gift of love. On a visit to Thailand Rohan had bought a set of silver jewellery for his wife Nirma. When she wore them in Colombo everyone had kept asking her how she had acquired them.

This made Rohan buy more such accessories on his next trip to Thailand and sell them on a shelf at the shop he jointly owned with his sister, called 'Next' in Nugegoda. "We thought we will be lucky if we could earn Rs. 10,000 in a month, but to our surprise within three days we had made Rs. 30,000.

From then on, there was no looking back. The first Lover saw the light of day in a small shop near the Police Station in Kohuwela. Now we have forty-six branches scattered round the country with four more to be opened soon", says Rohan. "We also have branches in England. One at Barking and one at the Lakeside Shopping Mall".

Nothing, however, was so rosy at the beginning. "I had to do most of the work on my own, handle the computer work, transport the stock and even arrange the display racks. Initially there were only six employees, but now there are over 300 working with us", Rohan explains.

In addition to jewellery, The Lover also sells watches and hair accessories. Watches come in different colours and are priced at Rs.600.00, enabling the fashion conscious to wear a watch that matches the colour of their dress at no extravagant cost.

Necklaces too come at prices which are lower than what one would have had to pay had one bought them in Thailand. i.e a necklace which is 275 in Sri Lankan rupees in Bangkok can be bought for Rs. 195.00 at The Lover. The explanation for this difference in the price is simple. "We buy in bulk" says Rohan.

A normal working day in his life begins when he drops his eight year old son and three year old daughter at school and comes to office, where he stays till about 10 in the night. "There is always plenty of work to do and I rarely leave the office before 8 p.m. I spend a lot of time in Thailand and England too. My wife helps me in everything I do and I attribute my success to her support."

Rohan Perera, still only thirty six years old but the Chairman of The Lover, mature and farsighted in his business ventures, has one piece of advice for upcoming young entrepreneurs. "Don't quit".

When things go wrong, when the road you are travelling seems all uphill, when it's so difficult to run the last 90 meters of a 100 meter race, make sure you don't give up. Success may be near even though it seems far. So stick to the fight when you are hardest hit, because it's when things seem worst that you mustn't quit.