The Cosy Toes Story
My name is Tracey and I own Cosy Toes which is a business based in rural New Zealand.
Sometime in the 1970’s and 80’s I grew up on a New Zealand sheep farm in North Canterbury, New Zealand.
This is my favourite saying: "if you don't who you were then you won't know who you are"
This is true in my life as my rural upbringing has led me to own and operate Cosy Toes. The back bone of Cosy Toes is my passion for New Zealand wool and the wonderful fibre it is. I’m a proud “Kiwi” who loves rural New Zealand, wool and family.
My husband and I have two children who were the major reason Cosy Toes was started. I found a product missing in their lives that I felt was very important to their well-being. That product was merino socks in little sizes. Merino socks were available for adults but not for babies and children. So I did something about manufacturing them again in New Zealand and built a website to sell them to the world. Cosy Toes began with my initial thought in 2004 when my youngest son was only 9 months old and my oldest son was 3 years old. My first priority for my business was to give it time to work. I wanted a business that was working well by the time my youngest was due to go to school at age five, so I would have something to do during that time! And my theory was that if it didn’t work at the very least I would have lots of lovely little socks to give to my friends!
In the first six months of being in business I added a merino clothing baby and children range and then the merino products have increased from there over the years growing with customer demand and reputation.
Today I have a business that is thriving on a niche. I am able to work from home in a little rural town but also keep my family as the first priority. I feel I am very lucky to have this in my life. It’s not always easy running a business but it definitely has been good for me learning new skills especially as technology and marketing changes every day. I work very hard in some very strange hours of the day (and night) – so my theory of school hours kind of went out the door! I have some very good customer service, social networking and marketing skills now because of Cosy Toes. I’ve even had to do some public speaking.
Cosy Toes is now becoming world famous as part of the journey was discovering this product shortage was also across the rest of the world not only in New Zealand. Luckily the website allows me to ship internationally direct to the customer’s door. I love the internet! The other thing I discovered was that not everyone knew about wool. I thought everyone knew about wool? Well apparently not. So I not only sell these products I also educate people about why they should love wool too.
While I was writing this I found some photos of myself and my two boys which were taken for the very first article about Cosy Toes which was published in a New Zealand rural newspaper. When I look at my boys now – they are no longer babies! OK - STOP laughing!
Pictured:
Tracey, Drew & Logan
in 2005.
Tracey in 2014.
For more about Cosy Toes visit my About Us page.
Sometime in the 1970’s and 80’s I grew up on a New Zealand sheep farm in North Canterbury, New Zealand.
This is my favourite saying: "if you don't who you were then you won't know who you are"
This is true in my life as my rural upbringing has led me to own and operate Cosy Toes. The back bone of Cosy Toes is my passion for New Zealand wool and the wonderful fibre it is. I’m a proud “Kiwi” who loves rural New Zealand, wool and family.
My husband and I have two children who were the major reason Cosy Toes was started. I found a product missing in their lives that I felt was very important to their well-being. That product was merino socks in little sizes. Merino socks were available for adults but not for babies and children. So I did something about manufacturing them again in New Zealand and built a website to sell them to the world. Cosy Toes began with my initial thought in 2004 when my youngest son was only 9 months old and my oldest son was 3 years old. My first priority for my business was to give it time to work. I wanted a business that was working well by the time my youngest was due to go to school at age five, so I would have something to do during that time! And my theory was that if it didn’t work at the very least I would have lots of lovely little socks to give to my friends!
In the first six months of being in business I added a merino clothing baby and children range and then the merino products have increased from there over the years growing with customer demand and reputation.
Today I have a business that is thriving on a niche. I am able to work from home in a little rural town but also keep my family as the first priority. I feel I am very lucky to have this in my life. It’s not always easy running a business but it definitely has been good for me learning new skills especially as technology and marketing changes every day. I work very hard in some very strange hours of the day (and night) – so my theory of school hours kind of went out the door! I have some very good customer service, social networking and marketing skills now because of Cosy Toes. I’ve even had to do some public speaking.
Cosy Toes is now becoming world famous as part of the journey was discovering this product shortage was also across the rest of the world not only in New Zealand. Luckily the website allows me to ship internationally direct to the customer’s door. I love the internet! The other thing I discovered was that not everyone knew about wool. I thought everyone knew about wool? Well apparently not. So I not only sell these products I also educate people about why they should love wool too.
While I was writing this I found some photos of myself and my two boys which were taken for the very first article about Cosy Toes which was published in a New Zealand rural newspaper. When I look at my boys now – they are no longer babies! OK - STOP laughing!
Pictured:
Tracey, Drew & Logan
in 2005.
Tracey in 2014.
For more about Cosy Toes visit my About Us page.
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