After turning from collector to creator, this innovative entrepreneur wanted to share her unique dolls with children around the world. Her passion is now an inspiring e-commerce success story.
As a model, Mala Bryan traveled around the world - meeting people from all walks of life. Wherever she went she always took a little doll with her, taking pictures of it and posting them on social media. As time went on, Mala started collecting dolls. She’d snap shots of them in life-like settings and write short stories to post along with the photos. Mala was having fun with her hobby, but she soon realized something was missing in her growing doll collection: diversity.
Mala decided someone needed to change things, so the avid collector decided to become a creator herself. She launched Malaville Toys, and began designing dark skin-toned dolls that represented people of color. Her goal was to create dolls that would make underrepresented children feel good about themselves - even designing the world’s first doll with albinism.
Sharing the passion around the world
Savvy entrepreneurs like Mala recognize very early on how critical logistics is to their business. Even before her first collection came out, she was organizing her packaging and shipping. Knowing that people from all over the world had already shown interest in her dolls, she focused on selling internationally online from day one.
Mala met with DHL Express to discuss her options. After learning about the benefits of DHL’s Flyer Bag, she was able to design packaging that could protect each doll’s box (very critical in the collector world) but also fit in the flyer bag. When she found out the cost was in line with what she’d expect to pay to order and receive a product from Amazon in two-to-three days, she was sold.
The most important part of the journey
The vast majority of Mala’s business is online, so a convenient ordering process and reliable delivery became the most important parts of her customers’ journey. With that in mind, she worked one-on-one with DHL to integrate our service options into her online shop and make sure everything ran smoothly.
The results speak for themselves. After the system went online, Mala woke up the next day to hundreds of orders.
Since then, Mala and DHL Express have continued to build their relationship. Mala even designed a DHL doll, and she regularly shares her success with potential DHL customers. Since the very first order, it’s all been about two partners sharing a journey and their passion, keeping up with the ever-growing number of clicks as the brand continues to grow.
Learn more about Mala’s journey – how she designs dolls based on her personal experience, battles clichés, and faces challenges as a female entrepreneur.