Home locked Entrepreneur Entrepreneur Peter Alexander, the pyjama man behind the brand Guest Author November 15, 2005 When his pyjama business was first launched, Peter Alexander didn’t imagine he would spend the next 18 years growing a brand and an online business. Now he shares how Peter Alexander , the brand, led to a profitable business. It all started with a pair of pyjamas bought in Hong Kong. The uncharacteristic purchase prompted Peter Alexander to take a closer look at why they appealed to him, and how he could get them to appeal to others. Discovering a gap in the women’s nightwear range—there was ‘hot and sexy’ or ‘virginal neck-to-knee’ and little in between—Alexander thought he had an idea for a business that was going to last about six months and started designing. “And,” he jokes, “it stuck.” The business, which started from his mother’s dining room table, has undergone many changes. “We started off very slowly, doing wholesale,” he explains. “Through accident or misfortune, we were forced to have a go at mail order to try and clear some stock.” This paid off, and Alexander realised not only had he created a niche with his products, he had uncovered one with his distribution. “At that time, around 1992, there wasn’t much mail order happening in Australia, particularly in the upper end of fashion,” he says. “Then our business changed to be more about catalogues and direct selling and we got out of wholesale.” As this new business “chugged along