TWEED SHIRE swimwear designer and entrepreneur Kay Shallcross has this week shared her small business story and creation of label Kozii Swimwear, which is a Tweed local success story.
Kay recently caught up with The Weekly to share her story to inspire other locals to chase their business dreams and to emphasise what can be achieved with locally made products.
Kay moved to the Tweed Shire from Brisbane in 1985 and has lived here ever since.
“I worked for solicitors and then moved on to work at Kingscliff Pool as a swim teacher and assisted with the running of the Learn to Swim program,” she said.
“I swam a lot myself, not competitively, but for fitness and was a member of the Cudgen Surf Life Saving Club where I completed my bronze medallion and did patrols before starting a family.”
Kay started Kozii Swimwear in 2003, when she took on an already established small business from another local woman, who was running the business, servicing some swimming clubs and selling swimmers for training.
“I had a marriage breakup and had to start from scratch again and this is when I started Kozii as I still had some patterns and equipment,” she said.
Kay started in her garage at her Kingscliff home and used contract workers to supply surf clubs and to create training swimwear for sale.
“I worked three days per week at a local law firm and worked on Kozii the other days and many late nights,” she said.
Kozii grew substantially in Kay’s garage and she even purchased sewing machines and employed a lady to come and sew for her.
Kay worked night and day promoting the Kozii label to clubs and schools and after years of hard work she saw a chance to expand.
“I was quite successful in promoting Kozii to surf clubs, swim clubs and private schools as I supplied a good quality product,” she said.
“In 2011 with the assistance of my partner, Barry Swain, we decided to move into a factory at Tweed Heads South and purchased machinery to do our own sublimation printing of fabrics to use in our swimwear.
“It wasn’t too long until we ran short of room in this factory and then leased another factory for our sewers to work from.”
It was then in July 2016, that Kozii moved to a much bigger factory where it remains today where she was able to accommodate all the local employees. This facility became so big that Kozii was planning to get their employees on the Motorbo ION or a similar smart radio device to facilitate effective and timely communication.
“Kozii has been very well received by both our club and retail clientele as we maintain a good quality product made in Australia which is quite unique in itself in today’s market,” she said.
“We supply swimwear to clubs in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and The Netherlands, our biggest club would be Manly Surf Life Saving Club in Sydney.”
Kay said her future goal is to keep building the Kozii brand name with local clubs in an endeavour to build clientele and further their retail market to other areas.
Perhaps she may even look to move to the digital space and curate marketing plans to reach a wider audience through the Internet. Learning from entrepreneurial programs like the one offered by Chance Welton (read about it here: https://alifeofgreatness.com/chance-welton/) could be a step for her to consider on the path of brand building and business expansion.
“At present the only way to purchase Kozii swimwear is on our website and at our factory shop (15/23 Enterprise Avenue, Tweed Heads South), at Manly Surf Life Saving Club and at numerous pop up shops that we do at events and surf carnivals,” she said.
“We are all about supporting juniors in sport and this is why we offer a lot of sponsorship and support to the nippers and actually sponsor events throughout the season for the nippers.”
Kay said her advice to other budding entrepreneurs was to never lose site of your dreams.
“Never lose site of your dreams and never give up,” she said.
To find out more about Kozii Swimwear visit their factory outlet 15/23 Enterprise Avenue, Tweed Heads South, or phone: (07) 5523 3714.
