The making of costumebox.com.au

Nikki Yeaman and Roma Burke met in their obstetrician’s waiting room in 1998; at the time they were both six months pregnant. During their time in waiting they developed a strong friendship which formed the basis of their first business venture together - that’s mine, a personalised name-label company.

The online store Thatsmine.com.au was established in 2001 in response to Nikki and Roma’s dissatisfaction with the lunchbox labels they were using for their children. At the time Nikki and Roma were looking for a business flexible enough for them to juggle work and caring for their young children. As a result they decided to launch that’s mine and added simple innovations, such as rounded corners on labels, in order to create a range of products that were durable and suitable for kids on the go. That’s mine quickly grew to include a range of stick-on and iron-on label products sold via the website to people all across Australia, also gaining a strong following overseas, particularly in Monaco.

After establishing effective order fulfillment systems and gaining a solid understanding of the back-end systems for an internet business, Nikki and Roma sought their next challenge with costumebox.com.au.

The idea for costumebox.com.au initially came to Nikki and Roma years before the creation of the website, which launched in November 2007. They saw a gap in the fancy dress market in Australia; while the United States and United Kingdom sell an abundance of costumes online, a similar range of choices wasn’t available in Australia. Costumes in Australia were generally limited to small collections in party stores and department stores, or via costume hire shops. It was this lack of choice that inspired the idea for costumebox.com.au, a concept that came to fruition when Nikki and Roma decided to create a single destination for costumes and accessories in Australia.

The items sold on costumebox.com.au are sourced from all over the world, particularly from the United States. In the past year Nikki and Roma have bought costumes from the New York Toy Fair and Las Vegas Halloween show and are constantly looking for new and exciting outfits for their customers. Costumebox.com.au currently sells over 1,100 costumes and accessories with the aim to add 200 more costumes to their inventory over the next few months.

Prior to starting that’s mine in 2001, Roma worked in the hospitality industry for 14 years, predominantly with an international hotel group. Over this period she worked in several areas including their head office and on the ground at several hotels. Roma was also given the opportunity to live and work overseas, which was a fantastic experience for her. Despite Roma’s success in this area, she chose to leave the hospitality management industry to gain some independence over her career.

Nikki came from a drastically different background to Roma studying archaeology at university. Despite her love for the subject, Nikki soon realised it wasn’t going to provide her with what she aspired to in a career. While she hasn’t been able to utilise her studies in archaeology directly, Nikki’s degree has enabled her to broaden her outlook and develop good problem solving skills; this has been a good basis for starting a business.

Nikki and Roma continue to manage both businesses and have outgrown their initial home office three times, recently moving to a new large warehouse and office complex in Brookvale, NSW. They are excited about their future prospects with costumebox.com.au and aim to become Australia’s first choice for costume purchases.


For further information, interviews or imagery please contact:
Wordstorm PR – Catherine Guyder
P: 02 8272 3208
M: 0422 403 851
E: Catherine@wordstorm.com.au


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