Kigu animal costumes a winner for young entrepreneurs

A hunch, a little start-up funding and a simple website. That’s all university friends Tom Cohn and Nicholas Harriman needed to get their £2m turnover business off the ground. That and importing a strange product that’s kicked off a craze that retailers, including Primark and Asda, are now fighting to exploit.

When an acquaintance brought back an adult sized animal-themed playsuit, or kigurumi costumes , from Japan in 2009, Cohn and Harriman saw an opportunity for profit rather than ridicule.

Cohn looked into the market and found that, despite being a staple of Japanese fashion for the past 25 years, kigurumi costumes weren’t available anywhere in the UK.

The first-time entrepreneurs spent £4,000 importing 400 of the playsuits from Asia. “We stashed them in my parents’ attic to keep overheads low,” says Cohn.

Rebranding the product Kigu for simplicity, they created a basic e-commerce site in a day and their stock sold out within three weeks. “The first 100 or so were bought by family and friends but then the rest of the products just flew out,” says Cohn.    

Source:http://www.todaywoot.com/kigu-animal-costumes-a-winner-for-young-entrepreneurs/