When 12 year old Zoë Carter-Brown failed to find a suitable gi suit for her karate competitions, she and her Mum set about finding a retailer selling the exact suit she wanted.

Four years later Zoë and her family now run their own business on the Internet, karate-kid.co.uk, supplying all the accessories needed for Martial Arts students and competitors of all disciplines.

Since their local telephone exchange was enabled for broadband last October (2003), the business has gone from strength to strength – and they have saved money.

Said Mum Kate: "We now have around 2,500 products for sale and before broadband arrived, it would take hours to upload information, and downloading was even longer. Now we download in just six minutes. It’s brilliant!"

"We needed an ISDN and an ordinary telephone line when we first set up, and it cost us a fortune. Now we just need the broadband line and it’s always on and much cheaper."

Said Kate: "We had looked around all the sports shops in Barnsley, Sheffield and Leeds looking for the suit, and couldn’t find what we wanted. I eventually found someone in London to supply it, but thought that if we were having problems sourcing equipment, then others must be as well.

"It was Zoë’s idea to set up an Internet site, but we told her she had to pay for it herself using her savings from birthdays and Christmas money."

Dad Roy is a software architect and he helped her to set up the site, but Zoë designed the initial pages herself. We didn’t sell anything for six months, and then we sold a bag - and then it suddenly took off."

Since then Karate-Kid has won the regional heats of the E.Commerce Awards for two years in succession, and the whole family is now involved in the running of the business.

And after winning many trophies, including the National Kumite Championship in 1998, and the National Kata Championship in 2000, Zoë has had to temporarily give up karate following a knee injury.

The success of the business must be some consolation to her, though, as Karate-kid now manufactures their own brand of martial arts clothing and equipment, and last year invested in embroidery machinery to be able to personalise equipment for clubs and individuals - and more importantly embroider names on Black belts for Martial artists.

Ninety eight per cent of their business is online, though a few people still prefer to telephone their orders through. Mum works full time in the business while Zoë is at sixth form college in Huddersfield studying English and Business. Son Glen, a printer, and Zoë’s Uncle Des also get pulled in to help at busy times. They are now considering employing someone full time.

And will Zoë make this her career now? "She hasn’t really decided what she’s going to do long term, but at 16, who knows?" said Kate.