Me2u Gifts founder Haley Mallinder will be selling their range of handmade baby products at her new shop on Guyton Street. Photo / Bevan Conley
Me2u Gifts founder Haley Mallinder will be selling their range of handmade baby products at her new shop on Guyton Street. Photo / Bevan Conley
Whanganui's Haley Mallinder started Me2u Gifts four years ago, after she and her mother sold out of handmade tote bags at the Whanganui River Markets.
Since then, the company has expanded to a thriving online business, specialising in baby products such as hand-stitched nursing sleeves and their biggest seller -nursing "boobie pads".
Mallinder said Me2u sold seven different handmade items to 148 retailers around the country and the time had come to open a store of her own.
"In the last year-and-a-half the retail side of things has just gone crazy," Mallinder said.
"We've run out of space in our workshop at home, and we've got some storage out the back of here, so we thought we'd just get our stuff out and open an actual shop.
"I like to make things affordable for people, because if I wouldn't pay for it I wouldn't charge someone else for it."
Mallinder said the first product Me2u released was nursing sleeves, which both mums and dads could use.
"That was our first invention, and they're like your big tri pillows but they're more portable and just slide on to your arms. Dads can use them to bottle feed as well.
"There wasn't really anything like that on the market at the time and, after a lot of work and research, that was what we came up with."
Mallinder said because the company had grown so fast they'd been forced to expand out of their workshop and into her residence, and instead of renting even more storage space, opening a retail shop seemed like the next logical step.
Nursing sleeves were Me2u Gifts' first "invention". Photo / Bevan Conley
"It's been a bit of a whirlwind to be honest, but fortunately my husband is an aircraft technician, so he's pretty handy.
"Between him and all our friends, everything has been built on site."
Mallinder, a former New Zealand hockey player, said she employed her mother, who taught her how to sew, and nine other sewing contractors to keep up with demand.
"Babies aren't seasonal, it's all year round, so it's not like we're just a summer product.
"We've got all kinds of different things [at the shop] from people I've met over the last three or four years in the industry, and I've been able to collaborate and bring their stuff in as well."
Local White Fern cricketer Jess Watkin, a friend of Mallinder's, acted as the company's informal ambassador, Mallinder said.
"Jess actually uses the nursing sleeves on long haul flights to help her sleep.
"She'll put the tray table down, slide her arm into one of them, and be able to go down and rest on it."
Also joining Mallinder at 76 Guyton St is Victoria Handley, who runs Milk it baby, an online business that specialises in home-baked lactation products.
Like Mallinder, Handley's products have become more and more popular in recent months, and she will now be able to sell her products in person at the Me2u store.
"I've got so many Whanganui people asking if they can come and pick up my products, but I live way out in Westmere," Handley said.
"Now they can just come into the store and get things directly from us.
"A lot of locals don't actually realise that Hayley and I make all our stuff, and they ask us where it's made and if we import it.
"I'm still baking everything myself, and I've just commercialised my kitchen so I can keep up with demand."
