Twenty Geelong brands that sell Australia-wide.
Geelong gets described as a manufacturing town that became a commuter town. Spend an hour on the websites of its independent brands and a different city appears: distillers, roasters, ceramicists, a surfboard shaper working since the sixties, a sleepwear label, a neon-sign company shipping to sixty countries. Here are twenty of them, each verified from its own site, none of them paid to be here.
Two rules decided this list. The brand had to be independently owned and say, on its own website, that it is based in Geelong, on the Bellarine Peninsula or on the Surf Coast. And it had to actually sell online through its own store, not a marketplace listing or a stockist's shop. National chains, franchises and group-owned labels are out, however good they are. Retailers of other people's products are out too, with one exception noted below. Everything that follows comes from what each brand says about itself; where a claim is theirs, we say so.
The list is alphabetical within each group, because ranking twenty businesses we admire against each other would be a poor way to say thank you for making the region more interesting.
Food and drink
Anther Distillery, North Geelong. Small-batch gins built on Australian native botanicals, made at Federal Mills. The site traces the business to 2016 and a tiny start-up run by founders Dervilla McGowan and Sebastian Reaburn. Ships nationally.
Bellarine Distillery, Drysdale. Teddy & The Fox gins and single malt whisky from The Whiskery, described on the site as the first distillery on the Bellarine Peninsula, family owned since 2015 and, in their words, fiercely independent.
Bells Beach Brewing, Torquay. XPA, hazy pale, session ale, stout and sours by the can and case, brewed at a Torquay taproom that opened in December 2018. The founders, by their own account, spent their previous careers engineering cars at Ford before they engineered beer.
Coffee Cartel, Geelong. Specialty coffee roasted in Little Malop Street, with the site's founding principle stated plainly as paying fairly, backed by direct coffee projects across Ethiopia, Uganda, Burundi, Kenya, Colombia, India and Indonesia.
Freckleberry Chocolate Factory, North Geelong. Handmade freckles, blocks, gift boxes and corporate hampers, made in Geelong from Belgian chocolate with a stated preference for local suppliers. The factory shop is in Baxter Road; the online store takes the same range national.
Love Tea, Newtown. Certified organic, fairly traded loose-leaf and pyramid teas, founded in 2006 by two naturopathy students and blended and packed in Victoria, with a retail store on Pakington Street.
Home and living
Custom Neon, North Geelong. Design-your-own LED neon signs for homes, weddings and businesses. The outlier on this list by scale: established in 2018 and, by the company's own account, now shipping to more than sixty countries from hubs in Australia, the US and the UK, with head office still in Timber Lane. Proof that a Geelong address is not a ceiling.
Elizabeth Bell Ceramics, Fyansford. Handcrafted mugs, jugs, platters, cake stands and vases from a studio in the historic Fyansford Paper Mills, opened in 2019 after, the site says, a honeymoon in Japan turned into an obsession with pottery.
Jade and May, Geelong. Own-label sleepwear and loungewear plus curated homewares. Founded in 2018 by Carlie O'Loughlin, independent and female-owned, designed in Geelong and made by independent makers in Bali under terms the site sets out in detail: fair pay, reasonable hours, zero fabric waste.
Project Ten, North Geelong. Tote bags, insulated bags, mesh bags and pouches in colours that do not apologise. Born in Geelong in 2012 once the founder's boys had started school, now made, the site says, from recycled materials. Ships nationally.
Surf Coast Candles, Torquay. Ocean-inspired soy candles hand-poured in a Torquay studio since 2013, family-run, and started as travel candles for Great Ocean Road visitors before the online store took the range national.
Art and prints
Local Breaks, Geelong. Fine-art coastal photography of the Bellarine, Surf Coast and Great Ocean Road by a Geelong-based photographer who, by his own account, grew up exploring this coastline. Printed on museum-grade Australian-made paper.
Surf Coast Prints, Ocean Grove. Gallery-quality Surf Coast photography, framed or unframed, from Michael Wilkin, who the site says came home after a decade working abroad in New York, London and Europe. One per cent of profits goes to Bush Heritage Australia.
Fashion, kids and surf
Berserk, Geelong. Designer-made slow fashion in natural fibres and vintage prints, a label established in 1996. The Pakington Street store closed in January 2025 and Berserk now trades online and at makers' markets, which makes it a useful example of a bricks-to-clicks transition done without losing the brand.
Milky Clothing, Geelong. Own-label kids' and baby clothing with in-house prints, sizes 0000 to 12, born and raised in Geelong since 2010 by, in their words, a team of mums. Made to play, designed to last is the brand's own line, and the range backs it.
Strapper Surf, Torquay. Surfboards shaped in Torquay, with Bells Beach and Winkipop down the road, alongside wetsuits and hardware. The site puts the shaping history back to the 1960s and the boards are still made out the back of the Torquay store. The exception to our no-retailers rule, because the boards are their own.
Skin, scent and jewellery
Botanicals by Luxe, Geelong. Natural, vegan professional skincare from a small family business, formulated by a skin therapist with seventeen years' experience working with a cosmetic scientist, in small batches.
Ernest & Joe, Geelong West. Sterling silver and 9ct gold rings, earrings and necklaces, handmade by a brother-and-sister duo who have been refining the craft since 2011, using Australian recycled precious metals.
Surf Coast Scent Company, Torquay. Handcrafted skincare, haircare, essential oils and home fragrance from a husband-and-wife business, made small-batch and to order with pure essential oils.
Pets
Pure Paws Dog Bakery, Newtown. Baked dog biscuits, pupcakes, custom cakes and single-ingredient treats, founded in 2017 by a former veterinary nurse on Pakington Street and shipped Australia-wide.
What the twenty have in common
Read their sites in a row and three things repeat, and none of them is a marketing trick.
They say where they are. Torquay, Fyansford, Drysdale, Pakington Street. The place is on the page, usually in the first paragraph. For a shopper deciding between two similar products, a real address in a real town is a trust signal that no amount of design can fake, and for search engines it is the thing that connects a brand to every local query in the region.
They tell the founder story without embarrassment. The naturopathy students, the car engineers, the honeymoon, the mums. Nobody on this list hides behind "we". The story is the differentiator, and it is the part a bigger competitor cannot copy.
They ship nationally and say so. Almost every site states Australia-wide delivery in the header or the shipping policy. Local is where they are, not who they sell to.
If you run a Geelong, Bellarine or Surf Coast brand with your own online store and you are not here, tell us. The rules above are the only rules, and the list will be updated. If you are one of the twenty and something above is out of date, the same address fixes it.
And if you are one of the twenty and would like a second pair of eyes on the online side, we are up the road: Geelong's own e-commerce growth agency, working with local brands that sell nationally. The coffee is on us, and so is the audit.
Questions owners ask
How were these brands chosen?
Two rules only: independently owned, and stated on the brand's own website to be based in Geelong, on the Bellarine or on the Surf Coast, with a working online store of its own. We checked every site ourselves. No brand paid to be included, and none was excluded for declining to.
Are any of these brands Sellevate clients?
Inclusion is not a client relationship and it is not a placement. The list exists because the region's independent brands deserve to be found in one place, and because we think a few of them are among the best small online businesses in Victoria.
Can we be added to the list?
If your brand meets the two rules, email info@sellevate.com.au with your website. We will check it the same way we checked the others and add it at the next update.
Do you work with Geelong brands?
Yes, that is where we live. Sellevate is headquartered in Geelong and works with local e-commerce brands selling Australia-wide, alongside a national practice. Start with a free growth audit; you keep the findings either way.
Rather just get the answer for your business?
The free audit applies all of this to your market, your competitors and your numbers. Thirty minutes; the findings are yours either way.