The Cape Town designer who stopped leaving money on the table
Beautiful work. Broken pricing. Money quietly bleeding out.
Bonelwa Stuurman is the kind of designer who stops a room. Her work - distinctive, rooted in heritage, worn by artists and gospel performers - speaks for itself. Bonelwa Creations was attracting exactly the attention she'd built toward.
But the business side was a different story. "I was running my fashion boutique without really understanding my numbers." Cross-border clients. Delivery costs. Markups that weren't markup enough. A VAT question she had no idea how to answer. She was undercharging, undervaluing her time, and leaving money on the table every single month.
When confidence has a price - and it isn't being charged.
The tipping point wasn't a single crisis. It was an accumulation. Quoting a client and second-guessing the number before she'd finished typing it. Completing a cross-border order and realising delivery costs hadn't been properly accounted for. A brand growing in reputation but not in margin.
For women designers in South Africa, the gap between what you're worth and what you charge is often the gap between survival and scale. Bonelwa was talented enough to be in the growth column. Her pricing kept her in the survival one.
Costs rebuilt from scratch. VAT structured right. Pricing as a weapon.
Awonke started at the foundation - walking Bonelwa through her full cost structure: product pricing, delivery costs, markups, and margins. Rebuilding her understanding of what it actually costs to run Bonelwa Creations at the level it deserved.
Then came VAT - not just the paperwork, but the strategy. What registration meant for her pricing model. How to apply VAT correctly across different client types. How to structure quotes so compliance didn't eat into margin. Awonke also supported Bonelwa's website, positioning the brand to attract a different calibre of client.
"Awonke helped me understand my costs from the ground up - and for the first time, I felt confident quoting clients without second-guessing myself."
Bonelwa Stuurman · Founder, Bonelwa Creations · Cape Town
