Masala Bazaar breaking the ‘stereotypical lens’ for South Asian women in business

Haya Khan started Masala Bazaar to support her own business, Masala Scents, as well as other women in Aotearoaa’s South Asian business community.

After opening the first store in Parnell last year, Khan has expanded the business to include Masala Studio, which supports other women in getting their businesses off the ground. She says the business has become a safe space for women to come together to represent themselves and their cultures authentically.

What is Masala Bazaar?

Masala Bazaar itself is a collective of locally owned South Asian businesses from around New Zealand. Our purpose is to highlight the creativity within the community that is a blend of our Kiwi heritage and our Desi [members of the diaspora from the Indian subcontinent] heritage and the amazing things our entrepreneurs can come up with when they blend the two together.

More importantly, it’s a platform that amplifies all of us, as opposed to one of us opening a store and taking on the whole risk by ourselves. If we do it all together, not only are we sort of sharing the customer base, we’re building what has come to be a gift store.

When did you open?

We did our first pop-up store last year in July. We went into it thinking it was going to be a one-month thing, and we generated so much buzz. It was definitely something that was needed.

On the first weekend, people were already asking us when we were coming back, so we did a three-month pop-up in Newmarket. We opened our doors to our first official store in Parnell, which we’re in right now, in February.

Who are your customers?

We have an amazing customer base that keeps coming back. What I love is that our customer base appreciates that what we have to offer is very diverse. We’re not focused on just one particular demographic. Our tourists love it, and our local Parnell community loves it, even those who aren’t South Asian themselves.

They love what we have to offer and what we bring to the space. Our customer base has definitely exploded since we started.

Why did you start the business?

The first reason is that when I finished uni, I was still working on my [candle] brand Masala Scents, and we had the first market day for Masala Bazaar. That was just through the community we built together online during Covid.

I thought to myself: ‘These are such amazing brands and all of our customers shop from us. We deserve to be in one space.’ The market day went very well, and I could have continued to do more market days, but I didn’t have the capacity.

There was this idea in my head that rather than doing multiple market days, it would be really cool to have pop-up stores. That idea didn’t leave my mind from 2020 to 2022. I actually ended up quitting my job to do pop-up stores, which was a really insane move.

But I did it because I think I was looking for a creative career. I was looking to work with people that I really enjoyed working with. I was looking to be in a space that really uplifted other entrepreneurs like me, because a lot of entrepreneurs still work fulltime, and this is their part-time side hustle.

Lastly, the nine-to-five wasn’t really working out for me. I definitely needed to be in a more creative space, so being in a space with a lower risk and, I wouldn’t say high reward, but good reward, was where I needed to be.

How did you get into business?

I’ve always been really into media. I was making my own magazines in primary school by cutting up [other] magazines and presenting them to the class. I’ve got a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in communications from the University of Auckland, and I’ve also got my law degree and I’m admitted to the bar.

I think while I didn’t do a business degree or qualification, I think both of those qualifications really harmonised to give me all the tools I needed to get into business.

It was very slow. I invested maybe $20 or so in starting Masala Scents. I didn’t get proper packaging until last year for my candles, because I would much rather let the brand grow and let the customers come on the journey with me as we grow, as opposed to rushing to scale it into something that needs thousands of dollars put into it. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it just wasn’t the route I wanted to take.

And before I knew it, it turned into something where once I did finish my law degree and I was admitted to the bar, I felt more comfortable taking bigger risks because I could navigate all the paperwork.

Why did you choose the name Masala Bazaar?

When we did the first market, I wanted it to represent all the businesses, not just Masala Scents.

I called my brand Masala Scents – there are connotations about how our food smells, but I wanted to show that we have so much more to offer the world.

We get people saying, ‘I thought this was a spice store’. So it’s become a bit of a joke because we have such an awesome mix of products and businesses.

Have you had any major challenges since you’ve been in business?

I would say navigating a business like ours in this post-Covid economy where costs are rising and people are struggling.

One of the biggest values as a business is that we never force our customers to buy something that they’re not 100 per cent sure about, which goes against what retail is, right? You’re always trying to get the sale, so trying to stick with those values and to keep making the sales is really challenging, because we do pride ourselves on how we treat our customers and navigate relationships with them.

A lot of my family was directly involved in working in bazaars in Pakistan. If they didn’t sell something, they would give it away. If someone didn’t need something, they didn’t force it on their buyers. There was sharing, and they’re still successful business owners.

We’re aware our products aren’t needs, so [it’s challenging] navigating the relationship with our customers and understanding they may not be in the best position to spend right now, but we know that they still support us in a way in which we can still survive.

Have you noticed any changes in demand since you opened?

Definitely, demand is still there. Our customers are amazing. Even if they’re not purchasing, they’re interacting with us – they’re coming in just to hang out, because we’ve built an amazing space where customers feel comfortable enough to treat it almost like a catch-up space, rather than just somewhere you come to shop. That goes back to our values.

It’s no secret people’s spending power is down, but they still interact with us, and we’re so mindful that they’re not able to spend the same amount.

What is Masala Studio?

Masala Studio is a creative co-working studio in Albany. It’s essentially a hub I made for business owners like me, where if you wanted, you could store your stock, have shared offices, have meeting rooms and a podcast studio. We have photography and industrial studios set up as well because we have a warehouse attached.

It’s just a space for people who need to get out of their houses to work on their business.

What services does Masala Studio have?

We’ve got people that come in mainly to use the photo studios. We have a content creation studio for our products. We’ve got a good-quality light box and different tools that you need to actually create reels, product images and everything for your product-based businesses. We’ve got your lifestyle or service-based businesses who may need a larger photo studio. You can hire podcast mics if you want to create podcasts here.

Essentially, it’s a space for people to come together and work, instead of you working off your bed or off your desk.

What do you want to achieve through the business?

What I want to achieve through Masala Bazaar is something that I’ve always wanted to achieve through Masala Scents as well, which is a space where [South Asian businesswomen] just exist. We’re not trying to paint a different picture or narrative of ourselves. We’re not trying to cater to any lens of how South Asians are perceived.

There is this connotation of how South Asians are perceived and it’s a very stereotypical lens – it’s the Bollywood representation, I call it. Our space is about decolonising as well.

Not all of us fit into it, so by just existing in spaces that have historically underrepresented us or [in which we’ve been] too scared to be present is something that I just aim to normalise.

You don’t need to present yourself a certain way. You just need to exist with who you are. You need to exist with what you resonate with and represent yourself in authenticity. And I think that’s what we’re really trying to achieve with Masala Bazaar. I would say we’re more than halfway there.

Alka Prasad is an Auckland-based business reporter covering small business and retail.

Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.