Retail sales in NZ have been quoted a few times as $60bn NZD. Let’s dig into that a little. The latest stats from Govt.stats.nz show $60.5 bn for the year to the September quarter, 2006. The big spends are $13bn in supermarket, groceries and produce, $5.8bn in fuel and $7.8bn in motor vehicle retailing. If …
Author Archives: Lance Wiggs
NZ Online retail – the market
Some interesting comments on the previous posts – worth a look at. I’ll redo some numbers in a while, but in the meantime here are some charts… This is daily unique domestic browsers to the big online shopping sites. (except Gameplanet sorry, which I inadvertently left off). The point of the chart is to show …
why “ecommerce has flopped in NZ”
That article again – right at the bottom, from out of nowhere, come “five reasons ecommerce has flopped in New Zealand”. “1. Mall mania. Trips to the shopping centre are a top Kiwi recreation. 2. Security fears. Kiwis are paranoid about giving credit card numbers online. 3. Bargain hunting. If it’s not cheaper online, why …
Ferrit. Incompetent. #3
Ferrit boss Ralph Brayham says that Ferrit is “aiming for around 300,000 unique users this month, with 2 per cent of visitors buying something.” That’s just 6,000 buyers. Let’s assume they each buy goods worth $150 (I am being generous), and that Ferrit takes 5% of that (generous again). That’s $900,000 worth of sales, and …
Ferrit. Incompetent #2
The Herald’s coverage of eCommerce leaves something to be desired – imagine surveying NZ’s eCommerce space and forgetting the biggest site is Trade Me, not, umm, Ferrit. Perhaps Peter Griffin is a columnist shilling for Ferrit… regardless – we should blame him, as well as the NZHerald editors, and give kudos for whoever did the …
Ferrit. Incompetent
Incompetent – check the spelling….. [update] Fixed now.
new news sites
Stuff and NZHerald upgraded late last week. I should really, and much before now, have commented on the new design of both. Frankly neither of them really do it for me and I have simply stopped looking at them. The sunny days probably have something to do with it… Friday page impressions were up against …
Another Motorcyclist off to South America
I’m going to start getting really jealous soon. Annette is either a Kiwi living in the UK or English with Kiwi connections. She’s on a trial ride right now around New Zealand, and then off to Argentina just before Christmas – riding a BMW of course….
Rod Drury sees the Yahoo!Xtra (what an unwieldy name) tie-up as creating opportunities for other players. He asks: What does Microsoft do? The choices are go it alone or tie up with a media company – pick one from TVNZ, TV3, APN or Fairfax. My pick is TVNZ, followed by APN. What is the homepage …
Reselling tickets takes a step backwards
Two disturbing articles today – one that eBay UK will not allow reselling of tickets to the giant Concert for Diana, and the second that New Zealand is introducing laws restricting re-sales of tickets to “big events” to a maximum of face value. People – you cannot fight economics, and you will lose in the …
46% of Asian internet users have a blog…
The blogging stats get bigger and bigger it seems, but this one comes via an online survey from Microsoft MSN & Windows Live in seven markets in Asia – notably excluding China. With a self selected respondant set – it isn’t surprising to see bloggers over-respond to a survey on blogging – these numbers have …
The online dating timeline…
A great dating site thought starter from Fred Stutzman via David Evans at onlinedatingpost.. “Situational relevance and the patterns of decay based on the lifecycle of users.” Dating sites should take notice of this. A member during the first week or two does not have the same needs as a one year member. Most sites …
Yahoo!Xtra
Yahoo!7 has officially tied up with Xtra- to create Yahoo!Xtra for New Zealand, launching March 1, 2007. With Yaho0!7 owning 51% of the JV there is hope for a great site. But early signs of the continued amateur hour are a non-existent yahooxtra.co.nz site, although at least AJ PArk has registered yahooxtra.co.nz and yahooxtra.com (and …
Shooting
It’s good to live in a country where policemen get hauled over the coals for firing a pistol at an inappropriate moment – even when nobody is harmed. Make sure everybody conforms to the law, but start with those that do the enforcing.
NZHerald follows suit…
NZHerald announced their redesign today – it’s looking good, and they left the logo alone… It’s been a transition year for Stuff and the NZHerald, as they have shufled staff and changed systems. Next year should see them both move into a welcome cycle of continuous improvement.
Lance Wiggs 