Comments on: Ferrit – It’s worse than I thought

By: The reasons Ferrit failed « Lance Wiggs

The reasons Ferrit failed « Lance Wiggs — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 18:21:55 +0000

[...] 20, 2007] Ferrit – It’s worse than I thought This post tried to get behind quoted December 2006 sales numbers, which were pretty poor: [...]

By: MG

MG — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:07:56 +0000

Any chance of an update a year on, Peter?

By: Peter Wogan

Peter Wogan — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 02:40:47 +0000

The original business plan was (and still is) to provide an online shopping option for new goods for Kiwis, believing that New Zealand in time won’t be much different to the rest of the world who are spending more and more online. Telecom is committed to the business long term and the payback will be over several years – probably somewhere between three and five. Our costs are right on track. We were a few weeks late launching Phase II but we’re happy with sales progress so far. You bagged us about the revenue we have generated since we started as a business, but we have only been generating revenue for 14 weeks (also in the business plan). If we don’t meet our targets then we work out what we did wrong and do something about it. We’re as accountable as any business.

By: akldr

akldr — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 13:54:43 +0000

Its an ad agency scam to extract lost revenue from Telecom – they’ve not spent much lately….

By: Lance Wiggs

Lance Wiggs — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 01:27:41 +0000

Thanks for commenting Peter
As I replied earlier, Ferrit has been in business for a lot longer than 14 weeks – approaching a year and a half in reality.

Moreover the business model just does not stack up for spending $12m per year for the first three years.

Here are some questions we’d al love to know the answers to:
What was the original business plan?
e.g. When were you expecting to pay back the investment? what was the original investment level forecast to be? What was the original revenue stream forecast? How do those numbers compare to the results today?

Are all costs included the $12m? (i.e. internal advertising on xtra and staff secondments) When are you expecting to pay back the investment now? What happens if you do not make targets?

eBay is a good example of early cash flow – The Perfect Store is a great and recommended read

By: Peter Wogan

Peter Wogan — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 00:26:10 +0000

We’re building a business. It takes time. We’ve been generating revenue for a full 14 weeks now. And we’re happy with how it’s going. If you know of some examples of companies that were cashflow positive after 14 weeks then we’d love to hear about them… we are learning and are happy to learn as we go. Cheers Peter Wogan, head of marketing at Ferrit