Entrepreneur goes full circle

LYNDA FORREST/ Dominion Post

COVERED UP: Cristina Sanders with her son, modelling a sun-safe beach garment marketed by her company - she started the business after noticing a gap in the market.

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Cristina Sanders had been away from home for years, and it took a Kiwi flashback to set her on a path that has sparked an international business plan that has eventually come home again.

Visiting family in Fiji enlightened Ms Sanders to the potential for sun-safe swimwear in the notoriously pasty white English market.

Now nine years old, Lion in the Sun serves international markets from two global warehouses, and it has just started retailing in New Zealand out of a garage in Havelock North.

Selling UV-safe swimwear and hats for sunny climates, the company has nearly exclusively marketed its wares online, a strategy that fits with the jet set lifestyle Ms Sanders and her family lead.

Ms Sanders started the company in 1998 to fill time as a new mother. Since then, the business has grown by up to 30 per cent a year, and the shift back to New Zealand has not affected her management.

"It is a very flexible business to run. Basically, we can just click open our laptops and run the business from anywhere. Our customers don't even notice."

The sun-smart message is well known in New Zealand, and covered well with "cheap and cheerful" products, but the niche for quality UV-safe swimwear was an opportunity knocking in Britain.

"We set up the business over there, because there was a hole in the market. They did not know anything about sun protection there. They are about six years behind New Zealand," Ms Sanders said.

Demand for sun protection clothing was growing strongly in their existing markets, and other places such as Scandinavia and Germany were ripe for expansion.

"It's all these pale-skinned northern Europeans who holiday in Spain."

Worldwide, there was even more potential.

"There are a million things we could be doing if we had the resources.

"There is very little competition. Nobody is doing this on a big scale."

She is back in New Zealand for good now. This is a tough market because of competition from alternatives such as The Warehouse, but the choice to make Lion in the Sun garments from expensive Italian lycra as opposed to Chinese or Australian fabrics was worth it for quality and durability, she said.

Seeing the odd sunburnt youngster on the beach indicated there was still room to grow, and the Kiwi market was just starting to move, a year after moving back.

Growth plans were almost on autopilot with the infrastructure set up to expand sales via the Internet channel.

"We've been working incredibly hard over the last few years. I think we can relax a bit now and watch it grow from here."