Buy Australian: Why neighbours make the best customers

The city fringe suburb of Pyrmont is among countless communities keeping local Aussie businesses alive, one buy at a time.

“A sudden death” is how Urban Oasis co-founder Holly Stewart describes lockdown, saying sales dropped 90 per cent as soon as restrictions hit.

Nearly two decades in the same Pyrmont store didn’t shield the mother-daughter team of Ms Stewart and her mum Carole Cherry as the sky fell in on retail. Their pleasure palace of Australian designed and made gifts, body care, accessories, homewares and fashion lost its customer mainstays. Pyrmont’s mix of weekday corporates, tourists and international students vanished overnight.

Mother and daughter owner operators of Pyrmont’s Urban Oasis Holly Stewart and Carole Cherry have championed Australian designers and Australian made for the past 20 years, but have seen a huge reduction in trade since COVID. Picture: Tim Hunter.

“Closing doors and not having anyone around (meant being) completely shut off. By Monday (corporates) were told to leave and by Friday they were all gone,” Ms Stewart said.

After loading all stock online in a bid to save the business, the pair made the store COVID safe and reopened as soon as possible.

“We were servicing just locals, because no one was sick here,” Ms Stewart said. “They’d come in and buy soap or candles or just things to make themselves feel better.

“People needed presents. People were having grandchildren and couldn’t be there. There were a lot of sad stories as well. It was a pretty tough time, but a tough time for all.”

Australian made body care and candles come from suppliers in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. Handmade jewellery is crafted in Melbourne.

“Promoting small Australian businesses is important to us,” Ms Stewart said. “We’ve got some lovely people from the Mornington Peninsula (with) an olive oil farm. They produce all this beautiful body care. That was really great, supporting all those people during this time. For a while there, we were the retail for (those) Victorians. That felt like we were all supporting each other.”

Carole and Holly say their local Pyrmont community stepped into the retail void to support them when corporate workers, international students and tourists abandoned the city fringe. Picture: Tim Hunter.

Her business partner mum said the corporates aren’t back, but the community keeps coming.

“We’ve had heaps and heaps of local people – Pyrmont people – coming in and saying, ‘I’ve got to buy something, I don’t want you people to go’,” Ms Cherry said. “We were very lucky for that to happen.”

Despite losing work for the equivalent of a full-time staff member, Ms Cherry said they hope to celebrate Urban Oasis’s 20th anniversary right where it all began.

“It’s always been Australian made and Australian design,” she said. “We’ve met most of the designers and (heard) what they’re trying to do. They have similar thoughts of keeping it local … so it’s a good fit.”

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Buy Australian is a News Corp Initiative – in partnership with Woolworths and Australian Made Campaign and supported by Red Energy – to help put money back in to our economy by supporting our producers, makers and manufacturers.