I Tripled my Income when I Switched to Retail

Animals have always been an important part of my life, and since being a teenager, I have loved making things with my hands.  So, when my mum suggested in 2006 that I might be interested in taking on a small part-time business called Fair Dinkum Dog Coats that a neighbor had for sale, I jumped at the opportunity. I was 19 years old and in my first year of working in the equine industry. My Nan and Pop loaned me $6,000 to buy the business which consisted of an industrial sewing machine, patterns, and a list of wholesale customers Australia-wide. My Grandma and Grandpa let me set up the business in a shed on their property and my parents were very supportive, so I guess you could say that it was a real family affair. And yes, I paid my loan back in the very first year.

At the time, Fair Dinkum Dog’s customers were pet shops to which a standard range of four styles in various sizes were sold via wholesale. During the winter months, it got really busy with me sewing flat out to fulfill orders and it became very difficult to juggle my work commitments as well as the business. Within six months I had to give up work. Our local pet shop was particularly supportive of my products and when the owners mentioned that they were getting ready to sell the business, I talked my mum into purchasing it with me. I liked being my own boss and felt that this was an opportunity to be self-employed all year round as well as deal directly with customers.

Being in retail taught me a lot of new skills; I was employing staff and had to balance stock with cash flow. I also learned a lot about customer needs. Off-the-rack dog coats in generic sizes aren’t always a good fit. I started offering custom-made dog coats which became very popular. Customers would bring their dogs into the shop which was always fun and I’d whip out the tape measure to work out what dimensions best suited them.

Five years later and my life circumstances had changed dramatically. Having gotten married and with my first child on the way, managing two businesses became too difficult. Of the two businesses, Fair Dinkum Dogs was the most flexible when it came to raising a young family, so we sold the retail shop.

In theory, it went well, but no matter how hard I worked in advance, I couldn’t avoid the winter rush making dog coats and found myself working long hours with a toddler. It wasn’t fun anymore. 

Despite everyone telling me I was crazy, I wrote to my wholesale customers in 2013 and told them I was no longer supplying them. I decided to take Fair Dinkum Dogs totally online and sell directly to customers. Through word of mouth, I found a really great local IT specialist to build the website for me and I learned how to manage it. With the Fair Dinkum brand already well established, I found that a Facebook Page helped bring customers to my website and avoided the need for expensive advertising.

Selling directly to the public online was the best decision I’ve ever made, for me and my customers. Instead of having to produce large orders all at once, I now have a much steadier flow of individual orders that I can make to each dog’s unique measurements instead of off-the-rack generic sizes. In the first year, I tripled my income despite making fewer coats and working less hours.

This gave me time to work on my business a bit more and I could look for new opportunities such as creating new products. With a growing number of greyhounds and whippets becoming domestic pets, I designed a new line of coats to suit their unique shape and this has become a big part of my sales. 

Facebook Digital’s Champions Grant

With one child already at school and another about to start, I started to get excited about growing the business to the next level. Being awarded a Digital Champions Grant in 2019 was such a nice surprise and has been a major turning point for me personally. I still find it funny that I found out about this ‘digital champions’ grant by cutting the notice out of the Herald Sun. The application process took a whole 10 minutes and changed the course of my life forever. Even though I’d had the business online for a number of years I knew that it could be much more effective, I’d just been letting it tick along until now. Being flown to Sydney and Canberra for master classes and events opened my mind up to new possibilities and introduced me to so many other great online businesses, some of which have become personal friends. 

It was a double bonus when Facebook selected Fair Dinkum Dogs to be one of 30 small businesses showcased in the lead up to Christmas due to my time in Facebook headquarters with the Digital Champions Grant participants. I was flown to Fox Studios in Sydney for a photoshoot and filming with a dog model named George. When people started noticing my poster at airports and shopping centers it was a great surprise to me. I had no idea that was going to happen. Our girls (8 and 6) were so excited that we drove up to nearby Bendigo just to see one of them. We had to take a selfie.

Over a six-month period using the summer months when the dog coat season was quiet, I worked with professional advisers to rebrand Fair Dinkum Dogs, set up a new online sales platform using Shopify, and develop a sophisticated communications plan for my social media. Simultaneously we built a new workshop onsite, so I didn’t need to travel across town to my grandparent’s property each time to work.

You can imagine how excited I was at the start of autumn 2020, ready to put all this hard work to the test. And then came COVID-19. 

I honestly wasn’t sure how it would affect my business at first, everything was so uncertain at the time. Thankfully, I was already an established online business and people love their pets, so sales have not been affected. In fact, they have been great. I doubled my best year’s figures validating all that hard work. Phew!

Of course, I still have dreams for growing Fair Dinkum Dogs even bigger. I’m constantly exploring how I might be able to streamline production and tap into export opportunities for year-round sales, but I keep coming back to what is important to me, and that is supplying a quality product to my customers. I’ve had reports of dogs wearing their Fair Dinkum Dog coat for over fifteen years, the duration of their life, which is testimony that we are making something well. I will only grow my business in a way that honors this philosophy.

Having a good relationship with my suppliers is an essential part of this. I always find the time to get to know my supplier and have a chat. These little things help when there are supply chain issues and because we have a good relationship, they are often helpful when I’m trying to find a solution to something. Other businesses are very generous with their time if you show interest in what they do and get to know them.

When I look back at my journey, I can appreciate all the wonderful opportunities that being in business has given me. In 2010, I won a Victorian Rural Community & Achievement Award that gave me a platform to talk about the wonderful support that I received as a young person to go into business. The following year I was invited to meet with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip at the Government House in Melbourne. 2019 and the Digital Champions Grant has been another important milestone presenting some wonderful opportunities to meet with high profile business owners and politicians.

Over the past fifteen years, Fair Dinkum Dogs has evolved according to my needs, my customer needs, and new technologies becoming available. Balancing work with family is so important to me. I’ve been able to dedicate time to being a stay-at-home mother while still earning an income. My girls are growing up knowing that they too have the option of going into business one day. Already they have learned valuable skills just by helping out with small tasks and they absolutely love carrying the parcels into the post office.

Best of all, every time I see one of my coats on a dog walking by in the street, I still get a great feeling of pride. I can say, “I made that!”

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