Our story — Meet Markus
I grew up in Ballarat, third generation Australian, grandfather came out from Bavaria in 1962 and ran a hardware shop on Sturt Street until he retired. Mum raised three of us mostly on her own after Dad left, and she was always very clear about one thing: you build something that pays its own way or you don't build it at all. That stuck. I spent my twenties doing project management for a civil contractor out of Geelong, long drives, long weeks, decent money but not much else. When my marriage ended in 2019 and I had two kids every other week, I needed work that could actually fit around school pickups. That was the real starting point.
Before Ridgeway Goods there was a pretty ordinary stretch of about eighteen months where I tried a few things that didn't work. I sold second-hand tools on Facebook Marketplace for a while, made maybe $400 in a good month. I did some subcontracting work for a builder in Sebastopol but the hours were all wrong. What I kept coming back to was a market stall I'd run twice at the Ballarat Farmers Market in 2020, selling leather goods I'd sourced from a small tannery contact I had near Naracoorte in South Australia. Both Saturdays I sold out before noon. That told me something worth paying attention to.
I sat down in January 2021 with a spreadsheet and worked out what I needed to clear each month to cover rent, the kids' school fees, and keep the lights on. The number was $3,800. I mapped out what margin I'd need per unit, what volume was realistic through an online store versus markets, and whether I could get there without taking on stock I couldn't move. I registered the business in March 2021 and spent $2,200 on the first proper inventory run, mostly sourced through contacts in the Southern Highlands and that Naracoorte tannery. Ridgeway Goods launched online in May 2021 from a spare room in my house on Humffray Street.
We're based out of a small workshop space in Bowral now, which I moved to in mid-2023 when the Ballarat setup got too cramped. The online store does most of the volume, but I still do four or five markets a year, including the Bowral Tulip Time festival and a couple of Southern Highlands Producers markets. The business cleared $3,800 in its third month and hasn't gone below that since. It's not a huge operation, but it's mine and it works.
— Build what pays its way. — Markus, Markus Mueller
Journal
How I finally tracked down the right leather tannery
I spent about four months on the phone before I found a tannery in South Australia that would actually talk to a small order.
When I started Ridgeway Goods I had a very specific idea about the wallet. It needed to be kangaroo leather, not because it sounds interesting on a product page, but because kangaroo hide is genuinely thinner and tougher than bovine leather at the same weight, and for a slim wallet that actually matters. The problem was that every tannery I contacted in the first two months had minimum order quantities that assumed I was running a factory, not a spare bedroom in Bowral. I got a lot of polite nos and one fairly impolite one.
The breakthrough came from a tip in a leather workers Facebook group, of all places. Someone mentioned a small family operation outside Port Augusta in South Australia that had been processing kangaroo hides for about 35 years, mostly for the export market. I rang on a Tuesday morning expecting nothing. The bloke who answered, Gary, had taken over from his father and was cautiously interested in working with small Australian businesses. He said he was tired of sending everything overseas. That conversation went for 47 minutes.
We spent another six weeks going back and forth on weight, finish, and colour. I wanted a natural tan that would darken with use rather than one that was pre-treated to look aged straight out of the box. Gary was patient about that. He sent me eight sample swatches and I lived with them on my kitchen bench for two weeks, picking them up in different light, leaving one on the windowsill to see how it reacted. The one that sat in afternoon sun for a fortnight and still looked clean was the one I went with.
The minimum run he could do for me was 20 hides per order, which still felt large for where I was at the time. I did the numbers on a Wednesday night after the kids were in bed and worked out I needed to sell 60 wallets to cover that first order plus freight. Sixty felt achievable. It was not easy, but it was achievable. That kind of backwards calculation is basically how every decision at Ridgeway Goods gets made. Not what would be nice, but what would cover the cost.
Gary's tannery is not a name most people would recognise and I am not going to pretend it has a beautiful origin story. It is a working operation near the Spencer Gulf that smells like a working operation. But the leather is exactly what I needed and the relationship has held. That first order of 20 hides arrived in May 2023 and I still have 4 left in storage. That feels about right for where the business is now.
The scarf I kept reaching for all through June
I started testing the Eucalyptus Dream Scarf in April and by the time the Blue Mountains frost hit I had worn it at least 30 days straight.
I should be upfront that I live in Bowral, which is on the Southern Highlands, not technically the Blue Mountains, but the two regions share the same kind of cold that sneaks up on you. We get frosts from late April through to September and the mornings in July can sit around 2 degrees before the sun clears the ridge. I have a decent collection of scarves from various experiments over the years, and I was not expecting the eucalyptus fibre blend to perform as well as it did in that temperature range. I was wrong to be sceptical.
The scarf is woven from a blend that includes eucalyptus-derived Tencel, which sounds like marketing language but is actually just a fibre made from pulped eucalyptus wood. It is breathable in a way that merino is not always, and it does not hold moisture the way cotton does. What that means practically is that it works on the walk to the school drop-off at 8am when it is 4 degrees, and it still works in the car on the way home when the heater is running and it is 22 inside. I did not have to take it off and stuff it in my bag, which is honestly the main thing I want from a scarf.
The width is 65 centimetres, which I made a deliberate call on. Most fashion scarves are narrower and I find them fussy. This one can be folded in half and worn as a proper neck wrap, or left open and draped over a shoulder if it warms up. I wore it to a market in Mittagong in early July wrapped twice around my neck and the woman at the jam stall asked where it was from. That was the third time someone had asked in as many weeks, which told me something useful.
For care, cold machine wash on a gentle cycle works fine. I have washed mine 11 times since April and the colour, which is a dusty sage, has not shifted noticeably. I hang it over the towel rail rather than putting it in the dryer. That is genuinely all the maintenance it needs. I mention this because I know a lot of people buy something like this and then are terrified to actually use it, which defeats the purpose entirely.
I did not design this scarf to sit folded on a shelf. The whole point was something you could grab on the way out the door without thinking about it, wear all day, throw in the wash, and grab again tomorrow. The July test confirmed it does that. I am writing this in late July and I am still wearing it most mornings.
What a shoot day looks like when you do it yourself
I did the spring product shoot for the sun hat in one afternoon with a borrowed reflector, a wool blanket, and 3 hours before the light dropped.
People sometimes ask if I work with a photographer and the honest answer is occasionally, but not for most things. The Outback Woven Sun Hat needed new photos for the summer season and I had a Tuesday free in late October, which is about as good as it gets with school pickups and everything else. I borrowed a collapsible reflector from a friend who does occasional portrait work in Moss Vale, dug out a cream wool blanket I use as a prop, and drove 10 minutes to a paddock near Sutton Forest where the grass was still green from the September rain.
The hat photographs well in direct sun, which sounds obvious but is not always the case. Some of the woven pieces I have worked with go flat and grey in harsh midday light. This one holds its texture because the weave is tight enough to cast small shadows within itself. I shot between 2pm and 5pm, which in late October in the Southern Highlands gives you warm but not yet golden light for the first two hours and then something genuinely useful in the last hour. I took 214 photos and used 9 of them.
The practical challenge with the sun hat is showing scale. It has a 12-centimetre brim, which is the whole reason it works, but that dimension disappears unless you have a reference point. I ended up using my own arm in a few shots, which I was reluctant to do because I am not a model and do not particularly want to be one. But the shots with the arm in frame converted better in testing than the ones without, so the arm stayed. Sometimes you have to get over yourself.
I edit everything in Lightroom on a secondhand MacBook that is four years old and makes a concerning sound when it gets warm. The edits are minor, mostly adjusting exposure and pulling back the highlights on the sky. I do not remove blemishes from the hat or make the colours more saturated than they are in real life. If someone buys the hat and it looks different to the photo, that is a problem I have created for myself. Accuracy is easier to maintain than a returns process.
The whole Tuesday cost me nothing except the petrol and three hours. That matters when you are running the numbers tightly. A professional shoot for a single product in Sydney would run to $800 or more once you factor in the photographer, stylist, and studio. I cannot justify that at current volumes. What I can justify is learning to do it adequately myself, and adequately is enough.
End of summer stocktake and one honest lesson
I counted everything on a Saturday morning in early March and the Coastal Boho Leather Crossbody numbers told me something I had been avoiding.
Every year I do a proper physical stocktake in early March, once the summer rush has settled. It is not glamorous. I clear the dining table, put everything in rows, and count it against the spreadsheet. This year the Coastal Boho Leather Crossbody came up 7 units short against what the system said I should have. That is not a theft situation, it is a receiving error from a shipment in November that I clearly did not check carefully enough at the time. Seven bags at cost is not a catastrophic number but it is a real one and I sat with it for a while.
The crossbody is the product that gets the most questions from people who find Ridgeway Goods through Instagram. It is a medium-sized bag, single strap, with a front pocket that fits a phone and a back zip for cards. The leather is a vegetable-tanned cowhide from a supplier in Geelong, Victoria, which I sourced separately from the kangaroo leather tannery in South Australia. The Geelong supplier does small runs without much fuss, which is the main reason I use them. The bag holds its shape without a frame because the hide is thick enough to do that on its own.
What the stocktake taught me, beyond the counting error, was that I have been underordering on the crossbody relative to demand and overordering on the sun hat in autumn. The hat sells well from September to February and then almost stops. The crossbody moves steadily all year. I have known this roughly but seeing it in a spreadsheet with 12 months of data made it harder to ignore. I am adjusting the autumn order accordingly, which means committing more cash upfront on the bag and less on the hat.
The broader lesson from running this for nearly three years is that the products that sell steadily and quietly are worth more to a small operation than the ones that spike and then disappear. The crossbody is not the most visually exciting thing in the range. It is not going to stop someone mid-scroll the way the sun hat might in December. But it sells in Ballarat in August and in Toowoomba in May and in Mount Gambier in January, and that consistency is what actually pays the bills between the busy periods.
I fixed the receiving process after the count. There is now a checklist taped inside the storage room door. It has 6 steps and takes about 4 minutes per shipment. I should have done it two years ago. Most of the operational improvements at Ridgeway Goods have come from something going slightly wrong first, which is not ideal but is probably how it works for most small businesses running without a warehouse team.
Customer reviews
Sarah K. — Surry Hills, NSW — 2025-02-14 — 5/5
Solid wallet, genuinely impressed
Ordered the Kangaroo Leather Wallet on a Tuesday and it showed up Thursday — didn't expect that at all. The leather is noticeably different from the usual stuff you find at department stores, much lighter and smoother. I've been using it daily for three weeks and it's holding up really well. Would buy from Ridgeway again without hesitation.
Tom B. — Brunswick, VIC — 2024-11-08 — 4/5
Great hat, runs a little large
Picked up the Outback Woven Sun Hat for a camping trip and it did the job perfectly — good coverage and held its shape even after a few days in a bag. Only reason I'm not giving five stars is it sits a touch loose on my head, so worth knowing if you're on the smaller side. Still a solid buy for the price.
Priya M. — New Farm, QLD — 2025-01-22 — 5/5
The necklace is stunning in person
I was a bit nervous spending $199 on jewellery online, but the Opal Stone Statement Necklace genuinely exceeded what I expected from the photos. The opal has real depth and colour to it — people have asked about it every time I've worn it. Arrived well packaged and ahead of the estimated delivery window.
James W. — Fremantle, WA — 2024-09-30 — 4/5
Nice crossbody bag, delivery was fine
Bought the Coastal Boho Leather Crossbody as a birthday present for my partner and she's been using it almost every day since. The strap is adjustable and the leather feels genuinely durable, not flimsy. Delivery to Fremantle took six business days on standard shipping, which is about what I expected from NSW.
Chloe R. — Fitzroy, VIC — 2025-03-05 — 5/5
Beautiful scarf, fast shipping
The Eucalyptus Dream Scarf arrived two days after I ordered it, which was a nice surprise. The fabric is soft without being too delicate — I've already thrown it in a gentle wash and it came out fine. The colour is exactly what's shown in the product images, which isn't always the case.
Nina T. — Cottesloe, WA — 2024-12-18 — 5/5
Great gift option
Ordered the wallet with gift wrapping for a Christmas present and it looked really good when it arrived — simple kraft paper and twine, not overdone. The handwritten note was a thoughtful touch. My dad was genuinely pleased with it and mentioned the quality straight away.
Aaron S. — West End, QLD — 2025-04-01 — 4/5
Good quality, minor sizing note
I ordered the sun hat after reading the FAQ about sizing and it still came up slightly bigger than I'd expected based on the 56–59 cm guide. That said, the weave is solid and it looks great. Would have been five stars if there was a size adjustment option.
Mel D. — Hobart, TAS — 2024-10-15 — 5/5
Ridgeway is the real deal
I've ordered the crossbody bag and the scarf over the past few months and both have been exactly as described. Shipping to Tassie can be hit or miss with some brands but both parcels arrived within the estimated window. The customer service reply time was quick when I had a question about care instructions too.
Shipping
All Ridgeway Goods orders are dispatched from our workshop in Bowral, NSW. Standard orders go out via Australia Post and typically arrive within 3–7 business days for metro addresses in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth. Regional and remote addresses should allow 5–10 business days. If you need your order sooner, express shipping is available through StarTrack and generally arrives within 1–3 business days depending on your location. Orders placed before 2pm AEST Monday to Friday are dispatched the same day. Orders placed after that cut-off, or on weekends and public holidays, go out the next business day. All prices include GST.
Standard shipping is free on orders over $100 AUD. For orders under that threshold, standard shipping is a flat $9.95 AUD and express shipping is $14.95 AUD. These rates apply Australia-wide. Once your order is dispatched, you'll receive a tracking number by email so you can follow it through to delivery. Please make sure your delivery address is correct at checkout — we can't redirect parcels once they've left our workshop. If you're not home when delivery is attempted, Australia Post and StarTrack will leave a card with instructions for collection or redelivery.
We pack every order carefully using recycled cardboard and paper padding to keep things secure in transit. If your order arrives damaged, please take photos of both the packaging and the item and email them to hello@ridgewaygoods.com.au within 48 hours of delivery. We'll sort it out from there — either a replacement or a refund, depending on stock availability. We don't currently ship internationally, but we do cover all Australian states and territories including NT and regional WA. If you have a specific delivery question before ordering, get in touch and we'll do our best to help.
Returns
Ridgeway Goods offers a 30-day return window on most items. If you're not happy with your purchase for any reason, you can return it within 30 days of the delivery date for a refund or exchange. To be eligible, the item needs to be unused, in its original condition, and returned with its original packaging and your proof of purchase. To start a return, email hello@ridgewaygoods.com.au with your order number and a brief note about why you're returning. We'll reply within one business day with return instructions. Return postage costs are the responsibility of the customer for change-of-mind returns.
Your rights under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) are separate from and in addition to our 30-day change-of-mind policy. If a product is faulty, not fit for purpose, or doesn't match its description, you are entitled to a remedy under the ACL regardless of how much time has passed. In those cases, we will cover all return postage costs and offer a replacement, repair, or full refund depending on the nature of the issue. Please don't return a faulty item without contacting us first — we want to make the process as straightforward as possible for you.
A few things we can't accept returns on: items that have been worn, washed, or used after delivery; personalised or monogrammed goods; and any items marked as final sale at the time of purchase. Once we receive your return and confirm it meets the conditions, refunds are processed back to your original payment method within 5–7 business days. If you paid by credit card, your bank may take a few additional days to post the refund to your account. If you have any questions about whether your item qualifies for a return, just get in touch before sending anything back.