From Beanies to Bestsellers: How Acorn Kids Grew a Seasonal Niche into a Year-Round Brand

A Melbourne winter. A real gap in kids’ wool headwear. A founder with a finance brain and a product heart. That is how Acorn Kids began. In this episode, Fiona Savaris shares how a winter beanie line turned into a year-round headwear brand that stockists love, why wholesale still wins for volume, and how she just launched swimwear by leveraging prints, suppliers, and existing demand. If you care about cash flow, indent, stockist relationships, and direct-to-consumer growth, you will love this founder story.

• Learn how to use indent orders to protect margins and place smarter production bets
• See how a wholesale-first strategy can fuel longevity and repeat stockist revenue
• Steal the exact assets that help retailers sell more hats, beanies, and swim hats
• Hear the behind-the-scenes of a category expansion into swimwear that makes sense

SEO keyword highlights
Acorn Kids, kids hats, children’s headwear, beanies, swim hats, swimwear launch, wholesale, stockists, indent orders, Brandboom, Klaviyo email marketing, Meta ads, product photography, lifestyle imagery, cash flow, margins, MOQ, category expansion, trade shows, agents, DTC growth, Melbourne brand, Brunswick production.

Top takeaways

• Play the long game with wholesale. Protect full price windows. Communicate. Make reorders easy.
• Indent = clarity. Use retailer orders to decide production and where to “back” winners.
• Be specialist. Headwear-specific makers and equipment show up in quality and fit.
• Add categories with purpose. Swim hats → swimwear leveraged prints, fabric, and brand equity.
• Invest in assets. Great photography and video

Transcript

  My name's Melissa Robbins. I have a special guest here today, Fiona Savas from Acorn Kids. Really excited to have this chat, Fiona, because it's been a while and we've known each other for a very long time, so we'll get into some of that. But I was saying to you earlier that I think nearly on my podcast, so with people that I know, because yeah, I have been around in the industry for so long, but I love talking to people and.

Sharing other people's stories that I know their story, but like, yeah, getting other people to share as well is exciting. So thank you so much for being here. Oh, thanks Mel. Yeah. Lovely to be here. And so tell me a little bit about, yeah, what is Acorn Kids, your brand, your background? Give us a little rundown so everyone knows Yeah.

What we're talking about here. Yeah, for sure, Mel. Well, it's funny actually, 'cause I was looking at a few things before we chatted. And one of your questions was, how long have you been around? And I went back to look at the original order forms and there was one from Mel from Moffitt from my very first season.

So that was 2011. Oh my gosh. But we have really been around since 2009. Obviously, you know the. The lead times in product development and launching. So, um, basically ACON Kids is a, a headwear sort of specialist and accessories. So we sort of add on where we can, anything that sort of makes a logical fit with our headwear.

But we are definitely specialists in that category. That's sort of where we started. Yeah. Back in 2011, I started Acorn actually winter focused. So I didn't do summer for quite a few seasons actually. Because that was. That was the product that I saw as something that wasn't filled back then.

Um, yeah. And you, you might even remember those days. Well, I do remember those days. I dunno if you remember this, but your, I think it was your mom, was it your mom that came? Your mom or your mother-in-law? That came into my store? Yeah. No, and sold the product to me in the store. I don't, I'll have to go and thank them mittens.

I think it was Mittens originally or something. Oh, so like they came in with one of my kids with mittens on. You were like, yeah. They were like, oh, you should get this in store and stuff like that. I love that. I'm so sure that that was the situation. All these people doing little, uh, little snippets around the place.

I love that. Now I don't remember that, but yeah, look, when I was sort of, you know, my, my oldest daughter was quite young. Now Melbourne Winters are cold. Really there wasn't much that had wool for kids. It was all pretty much a hundred percent acrylic or or it was more like sort of, you know, like an adventure store.

So it was like outdoor survival gear that was wool and it was then not very fashion focused. So yeah, I thought, look, I mean, I had the skills previously and I can go into what I've done before with products. That I thought this is something that I'd love to bring to the market and researched to try and find some suppliers predominantly for beanies and obviously mittens and scarves and stuff.

Yeah. And so I launched Acorn with a lot of handmade items from a women's collective, and they all had a wool content. And then I was actually also producing some a hundred percent wool beanies here in Melbourne in Brunswick through a supplier that I'd known from other roles. And yeah, and that's sort of how we happened.

So we were a winter brand for a couple of seasons before we moved into summer. So I still remember that the most beautiful little red, I know I had a lot of red and gray ones at the time. Yeah. And I would move through them quite rapidly in stock and uh, yeah, the little under tie underneath with a little, um, yeah.

Such a huge vape. Yeah, I did a lot of that sort of side flap with the little side ties and so yeah, they, they, they were very popular. And I even remember the very first product that I had, which was very, quite crocheted products with like whimsical animals like owls and stuff like that. So we were quite.

And still are, like, I still try to bring that fun to the design, the whimsy, do you know what I mean? So it's something that the child loves, but also very design focused so that it's not, a traditional kind of baby thing. Something a little bit more design focused, but fun as well. The kids love our products.

So yeah, that's where we started. We'll get into all the now, but tell me a little bit about, yeah, what was your background? And so what had you done before that helped you in to get started? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So I studied commerce at university and then I went into a graduate program at Ernst and Young.

So I was an accountant for many years and then went overseas and worked in London in finance. And then when I came back to Australia, I mean, I was always very creative, but I'm also very business focused. I think I've got that perfect left brain, right brain happening. So then I started working for Cook Eye in their head office, like in an operations role and loved that.

So it was very much an introduction into product design, product manufacturing, and retail, and just all the, I find retail just so fascinating in terms of, the tweaks you can do, the things that you can do that have an immediate impact. Uh, you know, it's a really fascinating business.

I've loved this whole industry ever since then. Um, and then, yeah, once I'd had my first, I was doing some other consulting work sort of in operations for another brand actually soon, maternity I remember that now. Yeah. My God. Oh, great, great days. Yeah, so I'd had a lot of experience with Makers.

I'd sort of had that finance background. Then I'd gone into a product and retail type scenario. Yeah. When I was doing the consulting roles, I sort of, I felt like I had some, just a passion to do something for myself really. And obviously being a new parent and seeing, you know, what I'd explained with the.

Well, looking for something that I couldn't find. I was like, oh, let's go. So brands start that way because you do see a gap in the market and Yeah. Sometimes, you know, that evolves or changes, but yeah. You, yours has evolved in the product mix, but your core is still there and that it was Yeah. Headwear or catering for that younger age group anyway.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, we've grown lots of different sort of. Add, add-ons, if you like, around that core offering. But I think that that's, that's our, that's what we do and we do it, our all, even our summer suppliers now, all of our makers are specialist headwear suppliers, so they're using equipment that's designed for headwear.

So even when I look at hats that aren't made with specialist suppliers, you can see the difference in them. So yeah, we, we, we stay true to that. And then I've done. Other accessories and, and certain things around that. But yeah lots of headwear. Lots of hats. Lots of beanies. Yeah. Well, let's go into that.

So originally you started with the winter, and then clearly being a seasonal brand, you're like, Hmm, how do we, you know, change this in terms of our cash flow is gonna be harder to manage? And as you clearly, you know, went from a side, probably project or sort of like, let's see if it works. You wanted to make it into something that was a full-time.

Yeah, exactly. Mel. When I was doing winter only, I was still working Other jobs. Yeah the, going into summer obviously took a few years just to be ready to do that as well. And by doing that, obviously then I allowed myself to do this full-time, which was wonderful. And to be honest, some are now completely eclipses windows, so that's in interesting development.

But I guess you just have to look at our climate, don't you, in terms of Well, that's really summer hats. Well, and as I, as it would've, you would've realized, and I definitely realized as a retailer, selling hats. First of all, kids need hats in particular situations, whether they're at kinder or daycare, they need a hat and they often lose hats.

So it's always need replacing kept me in business. It's definitely a good one for that, even though it's not a consumable, per se, it's definitely, um. That distance and their heads get bigger. That's another thing. Yeah. Do you know, I've had over the years, so many people, like, I have to find this exact one.

My child's so attached to this hat and we dropped it and you know, it's a little bit like the lost teddy bear or something. And I, I've, um, I actually had a particular about their hats. Like they like to, or not. Yeah, exactly. But we obviously do new. Prints every season. Mm-hmm. And you know, we don't often repeat much, but I did have, I had one lady who I did not know who she was desperate for a hat.

And I was rummaging around in sample boxes thinking I'll find it for her. She sounds so lovely. And I found her the sample and I found her another one actually that was just like it. I said, I can send them both to you. It's don't worry. And then about a month later, there was an article in the paper. She was a journalist saying This hat and this mission and this, this Fiona from the hat company, she didn't name us, which was a shame, but that is.

Yeah. Yeah. So she ended up saying, you know, just beautiful comments about customer service. So I was like, oh, that's nice. Yeah, that's good. And say like it is a part of them and the kids are very particular. Yeah. So, yeah. Okay. So you went full time and you added the summer range, and that did take a while.

And just tell me a little bit about like at that stage, what, 'cause I know I was a stockless of yours many years ago, obviously, but at that stage were you mainly wholesale or did you already do both retail and wholesale, or what sort of business split were you or, yeah. And we'll get into what you're now as well, but Yeah, definitely.

We, we were wholesale only for a long time. Yeah. Time of the time as well in terms of, that's just how brands started. They just sold into stores. They didn't really, they did, you know, I mean, we had our own rep start back in 2003. Can you believe that? M very early adopter. Very early. But then we didn't even, it didn't evolve the same, you know, pace as what we, we sort of went back to retail and then, you know, went back into e-commerce after that as well.

But yeah, you didn't, brands could just start wholesale and that was it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I even remember before I started Acorn, some of the other brands that I was working with, wholesaling, that evolution of brands having their own website was quite. Challenging. Yes. So it's just, it's, it's, you know, it's nothing now.

It's just the way it is, isn't it? But yeah, no, we didn't start wholesale and, and I still have that in my mind actually even now, that, yes, I'm a wholesaler and I do sell online, but I'm very conscious of it's a fine line you walk, isn't it? Because your wholesale are so important to you. And I see a lot of people, they drop new stock and then they go on sale and you are like, I wonder how they feel about that.

Exactly like you have to be very careful and you have to communicate really strongly and you have to know where your bread is butted type of thing. You know, like, um, if you are a pure, mainly wholesale brand, yeah. Then those relationships are crucial. You, you've gotta give them time to sell through full price stock and Totally, yeah.

Maybe you go on sale, but it's the samples. Or maybe you have just twice a year sale or whatever it might be. You are not discounting all the time to really impact your retailers. Yeah, exactly. You just gotta have that mindset, don't you? That it impacts them. But I even remember, I remember saying to a, a girlfriend, oh, I dunno, would people buy hats online?

You know, it's a small value purchase. Yeah. Anyway, these were early days, obviously Mel, when I. Those questions were being asked. 'cause that ship has well and truly sailed. But yeah, I mean the online part is good because we are a seasonal brand. Yeah. And most brands aren't really out there with a, a clothing collection, summer, winter and stuff like that.

So it does give you that revenue cash flow. Yeah. So you, and you sell obviously your whole range online in terms of someone could buy a winter hat in summer still. You might not have a full collection, but you, they can still have that, whereas the store might not have that anymore. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, we sell summer hats all year round.

Yeah. I remember, before I, when we were a bit smaller, I would sort of order the summer range and we'd probably sell out by the end of summer completely. And then a few seasons when I hadn't, 'cause I'd ordered bigger, I was like, oh, it's a revelation. I'm literally selling summer hats All season.

Yeah. All year round. So there's a lot of missed opportunities from not having. Summer stock in winter for me. So yeah, we kind of, I try, I do have some stock lines now that I try to keep in stock. Uh, I don't always succeed, but yeah, there, there's never a time that I'm not selling Summer has, yeah. Even the middle of winter.

That's Queensland except, yeah, exactly. And do you, do you allocate stock to retail versus wholesale or your, just start off with your stock range? So I sell indent. You've got your orders then generally for yeah, yeah. Which, so tell me, yeah, tell me about that. So not everyone knows what indent is. Yeah.

So tell me about how far out, it's sort of like, uh, it's almost six months out, isn't it? From the delivery time. TA timelines. So we'll produce a range, show it to wholesalers. I mean, sorry, to our retailers. I'm the wholesale. And get orders. So we don't, you know, take deposits or anything. It's really just between us and the retailer to say, this is the stock they like and we make it for them.

And then it helps us to know what's popular, what to back and gives us just some, some confidence in putting down that big financial investment that is product-based businesses to, to place production orders. So and so, you order extra based on what has worked. Yeah. Yeah. So I'll always order some for our online store.

And I do order quite a bit for reorders and in season, uh, because I think, you know, we've made such a beautiful range. So much time design that goes into each range. Yeah. And, and I sell it then for the next 12 months or, or longer really. So, but I mean, it's, it's sort of, it's a bit of a crystal ball thing, isn't it?

Production orders. Yeah. Yeah. Like can, get all the orders together, get the totals, work out what I would sell online, put some excess in. Sometimes I have to increase just based on getting a good price, like, um, obviously with my, yeah. So how does that work? So you sort of might just that tip you over the edge if they're like, well if you do 2000 then you'll get Yeah.

Better deal and so on. Yeah. I've always been quite focused on trying to keep those margins as healthy as possible and I, and I will carry more stock to keep. Margins deposit, in a good. Yeah. What numbers would you be up to now in terms of what would a, if you have one particular style, what sort of volume would you order of one hat?

Just to sort of as a guide of people, like where you started to where you are now? I look, you know, anything that I do, a hundred, 200 units of size. So, you know, we might have five sizes, 300 to 600 units, stuff like that. Yeah. But a lot, sometimes there's a lot less than that. Like I'll still produce things that are less, as long as you've got some that are sort of quite high, um, works.

Do you cross over the fabric in between the styles in terms of if you've got a floral fabric that will then also be used in three different styles? I print most of my own fabrics. For summer, and yeah, we do reuse. Like particularly we might do something on the inner brim that's from another and so on.

Yeah. A bit. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, obviously we do the same print across different types of items. Like we just actually launched swimwear, which is, it's super exciting. Did you? I did not know that. Just last night. Oh wow. There you go. Yeah, so that's, well, we, we. We obviously started with the cotton hats, and then we moved into swim hats a few years ago maybe four or five years ago.

And so you've got that fabric sitting there then? Yeah. Well, we've got the print, so it's on obviously a different fabric than the cotton sun hats and the swim, like a, you know, like a swimmers. Yeah. But yeah, now for the swimmers and the swim hats, they are the same fabric, so there's economies of scale there.

And it's something that, uh, I know my designer who I work with Jacinta, she's been saying to me for years, can you please make swimwear? Because the hats are so good. Yeah. Um, and the print are so good and I think more people want a bit of matchy in their little kids swim tire. So I think it got to the point where, you know, people want our hat.

And they wanna match, so let's give it to them. Yeah. Match. So we've just launched it match and you just chat new categories to see if it works or not. Right. Like you do have to keep evolving in that way to go look, it might not work, but unless you give it a go at times it's worth testing and trialing and you know, see what um comes of it.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I love product development. I love. That whole process and um, actually it's a beautiful girl I used to work with at soon called Zoe, who has a production business where she helps people start their ideas. She's an amazing, actually, you should, you should get her on. She helped me with the swimwear patterns and stuff, so perfected them.

And it was a really enjoyable process to actually bring these to market. It's taken years because, perfectionism and everything, but yeah. Um, a lot of the retailers have said they're so happy with them and they're great quality, so I'm like, good. Good. And tell me, just in general, what is your age range that you cater for?

Uh, well we do from newborn really right up. We've even got some adult hats now, actually. Um. So look, I think our key market is sort of. 3, 4, 5, 6 year olds and then we sort of tail out, after when they get the school hats, they don't need as many other hats. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, we still do cool caps and stuff like that, so there is still something for them.

But in terms of our main best sellers, it's sort of the, the full brim sun hats that are great for kinder. And you know, I mean, I used to move a tiny little shop that I had, I would move through so much stock of hats and yeah. Well, it's a good one, isn't it? Because it's something that you need. Yeah. So if you can give it to someone as something that's beautiful and that they also want, but they also need it, then you know it, it's good.

And I, and I think that's helped us a lot over the years in difficult, you know, trading conditions, people still need a hat. Yeah. Luckily. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's like you might not buy the coat, but you buy the hat. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, up and down. I'm sure you've had some up and down stages over time. What would you say to someone like, you know, who's maybe they're two or three years in and they're like, oh, this doesn't feel so good now. Like, or whatever it might be like, you know, you've been around a long time. Business is always up and down.

Yeah. Can you talk about a little bit? Oh, look, you know, if, I think one of the biggest challenges is accepting that, that it's not linear, it's not perfect growth. It's not, that was a. Huge success straight off the bat, you know? Um, and I mean, for me, I've always, this business has always been about the lifestyle that comes with your own Yes.

Business, which is a lot of sacrifice. And it financially there's the stock and cash flow and stuff like that. But to have that freedom is, to be with your family when, when they need you and stuff like that is, is is always what I've been doing it for. So I guess my why was a lot of that.

It was never world domination and I'm gonna go big, big. So I guess people need to sort of work out what they want from it. Yeah, absolutely. How to get that. Yeah. In terms of ups and downs, sometimes I have gotten something that's so great and you know, it's so great that maybe it's takes a while to, to sell well or a certain range just because of the.

Economic factors at the time might not sell as well as the previous year that you actually think that one's better. Yeah. And you're like, what? How do you just wipe, there's so many things out of your control, aren't there in this type of Yeah. Business. So you just have to keep at it. And I think know your costs.

Know, you know, and, and we, we pulled back over COVID, funnily enough, we were in a shared warehouse. We've moved into a smaller place. We do a lot of work from home over that time and stuff like that. And anyway, that didn't end up being as awful for retailers as we originally anticipated, but at the start of that, it was like quite terrifying.

I've got a whole lot of stock and I've got most of the stores that would be buying it shut. We didn't know what was gonna happen and that it was actually increased more for most people. But yeah, you didn't know that at the time. No one saw that coming, but it was a, yeah, you know. Good side effect that retail did, do pivoted, didn't it?

But did well. Yeah. Yeah. And so for you now, like where are you at now in terms of, how many stocks do you have? Do you sell mostly in Australia? Like what is the, what does your business look like in terms of even the split between retail and wholesale? Yeah, look, I think we're sort of, we're about 60% wholesale and 40%.

Mm-hmm. Direct. Direct is growing each year, which is good, but we are also doing more. In terms of offering your range Co. And um, yeah. We'll get into some of that, all of that stuff to grow online. Like I had my online store for quite a few years and did zero with it. It just ticked over through Instagram and so on.

That world doesn't exist anymore, unfortunately. No. So, but you know, we've got the growth there to support what we've implemented to grow that and Sure. Your email marketing would be a big part of your direct to consumer as well. Yeah. Correct. Yeah. We've got Klaviyo and we, I actually have a, a person who does some beautiful newsletters for us and stuff, which is really important 'cause our brand is quite visual.

Like we do spend a lot of time and effort on beautiful imagery. So it's a great way to share it through emails and stuff like that. Yeah. So in go up and down sometimes, and I think there is a bit of a changing of the guard, the A stores have. Closed down for different reasons, but yeah, new stores come, so, you know.

Yeah. We've got something too. Like there are, and I hear about it a lot. There's always new stores opening, which of CO and with wholesale you are gonna get, of course you're gonna get stores that drop off or close down, like my store closed down, you know? Yeah, I sold it and then they, I sold it and then I think they ran it for another five years, but then that was 15 years ago, whatever Now.

It's always gonna happen. Like there are gonna be ups and downs and in that, but yeah. So what does it look like? Or what has it been and what is it now? Yeah. Look, we've sort of, um, we sit somewhere around a hundred. Yeah. And it goes up and down a bit, but, um, that's yeah. Yeah. And, and it, it is interesting even with that, because I.

Have gone back to doing some life in style and stuff like that, because I feel like yes, when the, the new people come, they need to, have the opportunity to meet you or see you to, right, yeah. You know, get to know you and your business. I've just, I did one of them just recently where I saw you actually.

So I, I've come and gone with those things over the years of, to just selling to my database that I have to, no, let's go meet new people to, um, I'm back with some agents too as well. I was gonna say, have you ever had agents? So, yeah. Yeah. Well, I started with agents as you'd know Simone, who did Australia wide for me for years actually.

Yeah, of course. Yeah. She didn't do that anymore. And then I did it myself for many years, but. Obviously doing it myself. There was less face-to-face selling even during that time. Again, that was over COVID and so forth. Yeah. It's more digital selling and stuff. It's never gonna be quite the same. Yeah.

No, and I look, I think people are quite good at the digital selling now. Like the platforms are great. Yeah. And yeah. Do you use a particular platform to sell from? I do. I sell from brand Boom. Yeah. Which is quite good 'cause you sort of load up the presentation. It's very visual there. It's kind of like doing a online order.

Yeah. Yourself, you know, you just pick the styles, pull 'em across into an order, populate it, you can immediately see totals and stuff like that. The order looks like, and yeah. And it, and it's visual as well. So yes, it's kind of like in the showroom where you'd lay it out on the floor for people and they can sort of see it on their computer.

And a lot of stores are very, very familiar with that and very comfortable with that. And actually probably some of them prefer that because it, they do it in their own time. But I feel like there's been a bit of a shift now where I feel like we do need to go back to a bit of face-to-face. So yeah, I've got an agent in wa, Renee, and I've got an agent in Queensland, Kate.

And I think that could work well too, to be particular, like you're like these regions I can't get to or I can't service, or I don't know as well, so I'm gonna use an A and for you. You know, if summer head wear is your bigger season, then they're the perfect spots to be, have more presence as well. So I think it can work to have, you don't need an agent for every location.

You can have it for particular states and also. Separate out some, sometimes you do it and sometimes agents are doing it for you. Yeah. It's, it's working well for us at the minute and yeah, no, it's, it's good. But yeah, we've, we've done multiple different models and I guess it's just changed organically with I guess what, one agent stopped doing it and that that sort of forced that hand.

But yeah, I, I enjoy having that face-to-face as well, even at the trade shows and Mm. Yeah, I think it's a good, it's a good relationship building, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. As you say, like you've been around for a while, but that doesn't mean that everyone knows you. So you need to do more. You need to be exposed to the different people and be in front of people's spaces as opposed to just, you know, them finding you in other ways.

So I think that's crucial as well. Yeah, I agree. Agree. And so what, yeah, marketing do you do for your own business? So you've mentioned SEO before, you mentioned email marketing, and what are some other things that you work on? So for our online store? Like direct to consumer marketing? Yeah, just in general.

Yeah. Your brand. Yeah. Yeah. Look, social media, organic, I do that. I can be a bit hot and cold sometimes just with life. Sometimes I'm so good and my reels are rocking and sometimes they're not. But it's always authentic. But yeah, I do, well, I've started actually, which has been lovely for the last two seasons, found a photographer who's in Queensland, who's beautiful, and so I've gone up there to do the last two shoots.

And my daughter, who's older now, she comes with me and she's the stylist and the kid rang. Which is really an evolution. 'cause she was in my first photo shoot, I remember, I was gonna say, I was pretty sure she was modeling, um, those hats back then full circle. So I guess, you know, making that investment and time to do a beautiful photo shoot has been enjoyable.

And I got a video guy there for the summer one, so we've got some professional videos. So they, they're both investments, but I think they pay off tenfold. Yeah. Especially for your to wholesale. Yeah. Yes. Because you give the images, you give that to your wholesalers so that they can share those beautiful images as well.

And obviously Yeah. Their sell through is gonna be increased by having the photography to sell the products better, easier. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it just looks so much nicer online, doesn't it? With a beautiful lifestyle image. Yeah. And. Yeah, so we I also have someone else who does Facebook ads and meta ads and stuff.

Meta ads, yeah. The whole gamut, which is expensive, but you know, it's a metric that you can see, you can see your return on ad spend and so forth. And we both agreed, you know, I probably should have been spending more in the summer season last year. Yeah. 'cause then it gets leaner, you know, in, in the shoulder seasons is, you learn to drop the things back at, at that time and so forth. Yeah. And then hopefully your lifetime value too. Like once you do acquire a customer, they, it depends on when they come in, in their child's life. You hopefully will make, you know, keep them for four or five years. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. And we have actually done that as a bit of a goal recently to really run some baby, some more baby imagery and to focus on targeting new parents. Because yes, if you can get them at the start of their parenting journey, um, and then they need a new hat each season. And as you know, come forth, like it, there'd be a lot of brand loyalty because you know what size fits or you know that they don't get annoyed by that little toggle or yeah, the fabrics feels okay and it, it doesn't flop on their face or all those little things.

And I think that's just comes from me having sold many. Yes, you've got the very good selling points there. I love it. That's the thing, like I know kids are. Yeah. I mean, there's nothing worse than a kid who can't see exactly. It's like, you know, they're like peering out of their above, above the, what's it called?

The rim. Yeah, the rim, yeah. And yeah, the sizing, because I mean, my kids have huge heads and you know, they're always needing to have that particular size, if you know, right. Yep. They're a medium or they're a large or whatever it might be. It just makes life easier. So then you would just keep the same. So if you can get a customer younger, yeah.

Then that is good. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So what does your team look like? Now you mentioned that you have a few different people outsourced or contracted. Is that mainly who you use, like different people, or do you have anyone in-house with you? So full-time in the business is myself and my husband John. I, yeah.

A lot of people love when I tell them that I'm full time with you. I reckon, oh, I'm gonna say six years. Yep. Maybe. And yeah, and, and that was a lovely milestone when actually the business could support both of us to be Yeah. In it. And then, yeah, I outsourced most others. I have had another staff member before John joined the business.

He, he was in other. Corporate roles. Yeah, so just the two of us, a lot of people are surprised by that. Actually, I met a few people at the trade show who were like, oh just you, you two. I love that. Yeah. Just without, we won't put this on yet, but just, are you happy to say like that you are, you know, like where you are at in terms of at what stage the business got to, like 300,000, that's when you could do that or whatever.

Would you be comfortable saying that? I don't even really know that, to be honest. Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay, so what, what's your roundabout now and again, we won't put this in until we show, but like, are you like multi six figures? Are you over a million? We're heading towards that, yeah. Yeah, high, high six figures, but yeah.

Okay, so let's just start recording from, well, as in, that won't be in there, but just, yeah okay, so there's just two of you and you can run a, you know, multi six figure business. With it being just two people, I think people think that to get to a million dollars or, and you know, that's obviously if you aiming towards that, but you don't need 17 people working for you.

Yeah, look. Agreed. And I think for me, the parts of the business that I really enjoy, which is the product development, which is the sales, which is the contact with the stores. You know, if I was spending a lot more time managing staff, I dunno if we'd be much more efficient, to be honest. Like there must be a tipping point, I suppose, where we can't do it anymore.

Yeah. And I have outsourced a lot and I've actually, I'm about to outsource some other sales type processes. Which that can be great because it, I often do say like, I think people, it's often the last thing you do because you're sort of like busy pro doing production or you know something else and you're like, oh, damn it, I didn't do my sales calls or my yes emails to my wholesalers this week.

Like, shit, I left it to the last thing. Yes. And so it can be good to have an allocated person who does a certain amount of that. Yes. Yeah, that's exactly what we're outsourcing actually. Yeah. Yeah. Just to keep that contact going and restocks and with people and the script wheel. Definitely. I think with wholesale.

If the more present you are, not, not annoying present, but the more in contact you are and you know, showing stock levels or here's some new imagery or Yeah, here's how to sell through, or here's an influencer campaign we're doing, or whatever it might be. Yeah. The more you'll sell through, they'll sell through.

Therefore, the more reorders you'll. And it's all, it's all good feedback as well, isn't it? Like you get a lot out of those chats too, in terms of information or what's sold well, or what someone else needs, so yeah. So yeah, a lot of outsourcing, but just two of us as full-time, so yeah. Yeah, that's great. And as I said, like there's other, besides financial metrics, like there's other ways to, other ways to measure your success. And I think that's where you sit, like the flexibility. I know your daughter was sick a number of years ago now, and Yeah. You know, we're able to spend time with her. Like there's different things that you can do to, um, that are important, which the business allows you to do.

Yeah, well, it is a, that was actually the time, so yeah, my daughter had cancer for, it was three years of treatment. She's perfectly well now, just so. I'll put that in first. But it was a terrible time and the business was a bit of a double-edged sword at that time because I, we needed it because obviously we still needed to pay the mortgage and the bills and everything.

Sometimes I couldn't deal with it. But then sometimes, actually a lot of times in hospital, there's a lot of time that I was actually quite productive in a lot of ways and it was a nice, yeah, a nice not distraction, keep kept you busy in times where you might be a little bit at a loose end otherwise.

So I think in those years. Look, there wasn't much product development. We didn't launch new things. We kind of were definitely in a process of just keeping everything going and keeping the the ship afloat and keep doing what we were already doing. So I feel a little bit like we kind of missed a few years of growth in a way.

But yes, I'm pleased we had that and that is actually when John came into the business because really all we could do was continue to keep this business going. Yeah, dealing with the health issues and family issues and yeah, we kind of got through it with that. But yeah, it was, it was a, it was a blessing in the end to be able to continue to to work, yeah.

Yeah. At your own pace. Yeah. And do you, um, obviously if you've got the same job in terms Oh, so sorry. The same if you're in the same company, you can take trips together or you can have time off at the same time? Well, yeah. It. You can, but then also it's also probably better if you have someone who doesn't wanna come on the trip.

That's true. That's true actually. We had a good, we had a trip away a few years ago and Jacinta, who is from two little Ducklings who does all of our prints and has been a friend for many, many years, she's actually moved re regional now, which is a shame because she was amazing and she kept the business going.

Well, we did have a holiday, so if we want another holiday, I need to find someone else who can need to get, feel distinct as food shoes. My gosh. Well, how old are your kids now? My daughter is 19 and my son is 14, so, okay. Yeah. Yeah. And so now what would you say to someone else when they're starting out?

Like what would be one or two recommendations? Is the it is the, the cliche one, isn't it? About your why? Like why, why do you wanna do it? Yeah. But that was, that's as I said, to me, freedom was something that was just, I don't know, it was, I was just driven to be able to be around for the kids and stuff like that and, and to do something for myself.

Like I, I do it, it does bring a lot of pride to produce things and, you know, I love product development. I love when samples come and I love all that process. Yeah. So, yeah, find something that you. Love and enjoy the journey, as you say, too, like, yeah, people get so caught up in an end destination too, but it's like you've gotta enjoy the process.

So true, Mel, and I mean, part of me, the process of this business has been my kids growing up, you know, and being there. So it hasn't been a race, but it's been a job that I've enjoyed that's given me. Time to be around my kids. And I guess even now with, um, my husband Johnny in the business, we're a very close family and the we're very, um, kids and us, as a family.

We're close. And I think part of that is that we have been around a lot. Yeah. Maybe too much. They might think sometimes. We're also a very go through different stages. Yeah. They move you in different ways. So I think that. Yeah. Is, you know, being able to, to adjust to that too is good. Yeah. Yeah. But, and it isn't and it isn't linear.

And I think that's good advice as well. Yes. What we talked about before, because you know, even if you do something that doesn't mean the next season's gonna go better, but it's, it could be something completely out of your control, you know, it's just like it is COVID and so on. Yeah. But I mean, you know, interest rates, you can control them, interest rates and those things, they all factor.

Yep. All of these things and we can't control a lot of that. Yeah. And also just, oh, I was gonna say then, oh, the growth doesn't, as you say, it's not necessarily linear, but it doesn't always, it's not always predictable too, in terms of you could have a 30% increase and then a 5% drop. You know? Like it doesn't have to grow the same every year, which I think some people just assume that it will.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, it never does. No, it never does. Sometimes it's, a big march forward. Sometimes it's one step, a little bit backwards. Sometimes it's a little step forward and I think, you know, that's why I have been adding in more products because obviously that can help growth as well. Yeah.

Competitors change, well, they would come and go too, and I definitely noticed that when I had a children's brand. Like it is something that they'll come and go and it's sometimes about that. Persistence or being around the longest, or, you know, having that longevity can be a factor. Yeah. I mean, look, yeah, lots of things have come and gone, haven't they?

In in our journeys. Um, yeah. Still here. Yeah, exactly. But you're, you're evolving at the same time, so I think that's Yeah, yeah, definitely. You have to keep evolving. Yeah, but, and trailing new things and testing different things. But I think just, you know, obviously we've known each other for a very long time.

I think the relationships you build is, are so crucial as well. So you would've had stores, maybe not my one, but you know, ones that you've had for 10 years. So many. So many. Yeah. Yeah. Heaps of stores. I've still got a few stores that have been with me from the beginning. Yeah. So like that with the same owners.

That's so, that's amazing. But it's also like, just shows that lifetime value of a customer. Yeah. And I always talk about in wholesale, you, when you pick up a customer, they are a long-term customer. They are gonna be with you in 10 years time because. I think you'll treat them differently than if you're just like, oh, they've just spent $300 with me.

My minimum order compared to going, well, what if they are a 20,000 or 50,000, a hundred thousand dollars customer? Yeah. Yeah. It is interesting, isn't it? Because yeah, some of the stores that I've stocked since 2011, like Yeah, when? When Moppet ordered as well. And I don't think I have added some of the milk, but I probably should and it would be quite shocking.

Um, it would be quite interesting. I think you should do that and test that out. You should. I should. I know like chocolate freckles. Beautiful. Julia, she's just near me. She's, she's been a customer. Who's that? All the way through Chocolate freckles. Julia Chocolate freckles. I remember chocolate freckles.

Yeah. Was stay around when I was around. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. She's one of the OGs as well. Yes. There's a lot of them. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's it. Like what does it look like for a customer? And this is again, like you, let's say that someone orders a thousand dollars worth, you know, but do they order five times a year and do they order for 10 years?

Like that's what it can be. Depends on many different factors, but people can be more than a one-off order, which I think people forget when they're so consumed with the direct to consumer margin. They're just like, but I get more money from retail. I'm like, yeah, but. A customer acquisition cost is so, can be so high.

And are they a one-time customer? And obviously ideally for you, they aren't a lot one-time customer. They are buying $500 in their lifetime, but they're not necessarily spending 50, are they? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I don't really get too hung up on my margin to directing consumer in wholesaler. Like it's to me.

I factor it across both. You know what I mean? So at the end of the day, you're gonna be selling 50 units to your wholesale customer compared to less, to your direct to consumer. So, there's so much benefit in that wholesale. Mm. And I mean, as long as you've got your margin set, so you are, well, that's right.

You've gotta make, you've gotta make profit on the wholesale sale. But I think some people look at it as well, I can make. I make less than the retailer, so why would I do that? You know? Anyway. Yeah, no, yeah. It's interesting view, but I think it's a short-term view, not a long-term view, which is why, I mean, wholesale's not the easy route in terms of you've got so much less control and you do get less margin.

But I think it's a, it can be a slow build, right? Like you would've started with 10 stockers one year probably, and then gradually built that up. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. The start was yeah. You know, 10, 20, 30, whatever it was, uh, low slow growth and yeah, some have stayed with us the whole time if they're still, you know, in business.

Yeah. No, we appreciate it. And I mean, yeah I do put a lot of effort into our wholesale. Newsletters and making sure the range sits well in a store, that it's got what it needs, you know, that there's, there's the appropriate tags that tell people the benefits and all that sort of stuff to make it a visual sell as well in store.

So, yeah, and how they, we put hooks on things so that it would sit nicely in store. You know, I guess coming from a retail background as well, in my early days, I do think about those things, how it looks in store. It makes a huge difference because yeah, the easier they can sell through the product, the faster they're gonna need more.

Yeah. And they're not always talking to every customer. So the more the product can sell itself as well. Yeah. The better As. Yeah, and I think, you know, even having that mindset of thinking about the sell through for your wholesaler for that long term proposition, you know, like I don't want someone who's brand new to do an order that I think you're ordering too much.

Like I would rather say to them, why don't you pull it back and we can. Chat because I want them to come back. Fix. You're going. It's all sold out, you know? So I would never take a short win on someone who I think is over-ordering without telling them and stuff like that. So yeah, I've always had that long-term mindset with the stores to hopefully build.

Yeah, that's good. That's really good. And so how many SKUs do you actually even have now? As we launched at eight o'clock last night, and I was still loading up SKUs. Maybe too many. I don't, don't actually even know the answer to that, but you know, we do probably, probably 60, 60 styles a season for summer.

Yeah. And maybe 40 for winter. But then now I've added on swim. That probably goes up to about a hundred and something. So, yeah. Yeah. Okay. No, that's good's good too. Good to hear that. And so obviously with summer being the biggest, sorry, with winter being not as big, that's what. The direct to consumer allows you to keep selling summer all round as well.

So it sort of keeps that cash flow a little bit more consistent as opposed to the fluctuations. Yeah, definitely. Yep. That's um, I mean we still sell some winter in summer, but I think that's people going on holidays and stuff, so Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. So first of all, let's, share your Instagram is ACON kids, correct? Yes. And website is acon kids.com au, correct? Yeah. Perfect. Alright, I'll put the links in the show notes as well and Lovely. So excited for the new launch of swimwear.

I have to go and check that out. Ah, thanks Mel. Yeah. Online now. Yeah, it's online now. Look forward to seeing it and I'm sure it's in, in all your stores. Shop in recently. Yes. Actually, before we go on, do you match the. Range drop on your website with your stores getting the delivery? Yes. They have to have it before we launch it.

Yes. Yeah. You considering them too. I love that because I know some people don't do that, so that's really important as well. Yeah, I mean that, that's, the last couple of weeks have been hectic 'cause there is only two of us that are packing all these orders and you wanna get it out and you wanna get it launched.

So it's quite intense getting it out. Yeah. But we also don't want people having it and not putting it on. Do you know what I mean? It's such a, um, a fine line, like how long they want it, or they, yeah. It would be ideal to just get everything in and out in a day and then everyone gets at similar time. But obviously there's just, someone's order gets packed first, someone's order gets packed last.

It's just a, a, one of those things, but. Yeah, we, we try to have everyone to have their stock or at least to have tracking numbers and invoices so they would know what they have before we launch. Obviously with New Zealand and stuff, shipping does take a while. Yes. Yeah. Amazing. Alright. Thank you so much Fiona.

I've loved our chat and I'm so glad. Thank you for coming on and sharing lots of your journey and yeah, I love just hearing from people who've been going, you know that length of time too to go like, this is possible. This is what you can do and this is, yeah. Available to you if you set up with the right foundations and.

You know, scale at a pace that suits you as well. Yeah, definitely. We've never scaled too fast. It's always been at a steady pace to keep, to keep cash flow and keep all those things in front of mind. But yeah, no, thank you and thanks for the trip down memory lane. I've loved talking origin story.

Exactly. No, that's really good. And to tell you, I'm pretty sure it was your mother-in-law who came in with, I'll have to ask Para, um, to, yeah, because I think he lived around the corner at the time as well. Yeah. Yeah. We're in the area. Maybe I sent her in. Maybe I was hiding around the corner going, go, go talk to that lady.

Make sure it's that one. Yeah, it's possible. Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Thanks mom. Alright. Thanks Fiona. Bye. . Bye.