‘It would take a lot to bring me home now’

The Covid-19 lockdown provided the nudge Edel Duffy needed to launch her online business, Her Place Cosmetics. The Galway native and marketing graduate had moved to Australia in 2010, settling in Sydney, having first lived in Perth, but she missed her favourite Irish cosmetics brands. With a marketing career that spanned hospitality, photography and healthcare, Duffy felt confident she could build an online business in that space.In 2021, she took a leap of faith. It took about nine months to build a website and Duffy concentrated on sourcing a range of products from about 20 or so well-known Irish and UK brands that people couldn’t get at that time in Australia. “I quit my job and threw myself at it and I learned as I went along,” she recalls. One of the painful lessons she learned was about logistics.READ MORE“For a while, I didn’t know where my first shipment was and it was petrifying. It got mislabelled and ended up going to Brisbane. When it eventually arrived in Sydney, I got a call saying they had found a snail, and it might have to be quarantined in case it had come from Ireland. I thought it was someone pulling my leg, but it wasn’t. Twenty four hours later I got a call saying, ‘You’re in luck. The snail is Aussie.’” The long delay in shipping turned out to be a blessing in disguise. “I was pregnant at the time and suffering from terrible morning sickness. I wouldn’t have been able to pack an order had it arrived on time.” Duffy hasn’t look back since and has developed a seven-figure business that now includes a physical store in Sydney, which opened last November. Her Place now stocks about 600 make-up, skin care, hair and body products and accessories, including well-known Irish brands such as Bare by Vogue, Sculpted by Aimee, Kash Beauty and Dripping Gold, among many others.“I knew there was a demand for the products and, after about six weeks, I was ordering again. Brands then started to contact me and as the years went by, it got busier and busier.” Duffy has tapped into Australia’s strong Irish and British expat population, developing a loyal following throughout the country and in New Zealand. There are brands that have the opportunity to scale significantly here, but without boots on the ground they won’t be able to keep their products on the shelves“I would not have been able to develop this business were it not for the support of the Irish community here. There’s huge loyalty to Irish brands and we’re great at supporting our own. “There is a premium to be paid because of the cost of importing but they are willing to pay that price for the brands they love.”Word of mouth has also led to a big increase in Australian customers. “One of the great things about Australians is that they are interested in international products. They talk to their Irish and UK colleagues at work, and we’ve seen a huge increase in that end of the business in recent years.”Last year, Duffy decided to open up a physical store in the eastern suburbs of the city, an area where many Irish and British people live. The retail store has helped drive interest, including from established retailers in Australia. Duffy has leveraged her connections further recently by co-founding an agency called Two Shores to help Irish and British beauty brands establish a presence in Australia. While she says he does not want to become a distributor involved in the logistics of importing products, she sees a niche as a valuable middle party between the two sides. “There are brands that have the opportunity to scale significantly here, but without boots on the ground they won’t be able to keep their products on the shelves. I’m here advocating and marketing for them for all the time.”[ A Wicklow woman in Marbella: ‘I would make friends in the summer and they would then go home. But I found my tribe’Opens in new window ]Australian retailers don’t want the hassle of dealing with companies far away and in a different time zone; both sides have had difficulties managing these relationships in the past, she explains. Duffy’s husband, Eric, hails from Cork and runs his own decorative finishes business. Because of the high cost of property in Sydney, they decided to rent there while buying an investment property in Queensland to help them get on the property ladder.The couple have young sons, so Duffy has a busy schedule. “People talk about balance and I wonder if there is such a thing. I fit everything in when I can. I try to be present with the children when I’m with them and when they nod off, I’ll catch up with that email.”When they are not working, the couple enjoy the pleasant climate and beach life Sydney offers, where there is an ongoing “feeling of being on holiday”. “You can have a wild lifestyle or you can have a very healthy lifestyle here, running along the beach – it depends on what you want. It would take a lot to bring me home now.”One nostalgic hankering Duffy has is for summers in Galway, where she has happy memories of the Galway Races and arts festival days out spent with family. “It was always a happy time in our household growing up. I miss that and the great humour that we have in Ireland.”