I have been closely watching Parallel Imported Ltd (an Auckland based company) for a few years now. They are the foremost parallel importing company in New Zealand. (See the blog post below to learn about parallel importing). They sell a wide range of Consumer products such as Mobile phones, ipods, car audio and fragrances. They tend to stick to the electronics market but they have dabbled with sunglasses and clothing.
Before I even stumbled across a store I had heard of them but for all the wrong reasons. They were featured on Fair Go, a New Zealand consumer advocacy program after a disgruntled customer complained about their lack of service. It seems since this program several years ago they have been on a charm offensive greatly turning round their customer service by offering outrageous guarantees to gain back the trust of customers both past and potential. Some of their new initiatives include a 14day no questions asked return policy, and 1 year guarantee on all merchandise.
They have 4 stores located in Auckland. 2 on Queen St, 1 on the North Shore and one in East Auckland. They also had a store in Porirua but this closed down. When I was in Wellington once I actually drove to Porirua (About a hour drive) to find this shop but couldn't locate it. Apparently it shut down because Wellingtonians don't like to drive to save on big ticket items they prefer to stay in the central city. From the time it took to drive to Porirua I knew it was a bad place to have a big ticket item shop..The only thing I knew about Wellington was that Porirua is like the Otara of Wellington! Porirua is a low income side of town I could have told them Porirua was a bad location. I thnk they should try again in Wellington but this time in the city. Also I would love to see them hit all the main centres in New Zealand.
2 stores on queen st! This is a funny concept having 2 stores on the same road but the stores are quite small and I suppose it makes sense to capture shoppers at the top and bottom as Queen Street and parking is a nightmare.
Tayne derriman is the founder of Parallel Imported Ltd. He originally started trading used mobile phones but then turned to brand new phones. He originally sold at markets out of the back of his car, and in the trade and exchnage paper. Demand really took off and he started to look at other electronic products. He opened a small store and had people people lining around the blacok to get in on Saturday mornings.
PIL now has it 4 Auckland stores, a wholesale division and a website.
In my opinion Tayne has built a great company from scratch and apparently they turnover 50 million a year now. Not bad for a company only 5 years old.
Some facts used from article: "Parallel Universe" - Unlimited.co.nz
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Review - Parallel Importing
I have been meaning to write about Parallel Importing for a while now. For those of you unfamiliar with the term "parallel importing" essentially it means to purchase a product from one country and import it directly yourself bypassing any local distributors.
Why is parallel importing good? In short it means cheaper prices for in-demand products. Lets take a famous product for example, Levis. Levis has their head office in USA and in each country around the world they will have either a local office or local distributors for Levis jeans. The head company usually has an agreement to only supply the products to the distributor in each country. This means that if you want to sell this product in your shop (or whatever) you must purchase it from the local distributor.
Where this is bad is that effectively the local distributor has the monopoly over the product: ie if you want Levis in your shop you have to order it from the local distributor. And we all know monopolies are not good for prices. The local distributor will charge as high a price as they can because local shops cannot buy the products from elsewhere.
In New Zealand we are a long way away from the major business markets like the USA so we end up with very expensive prices (higher than they need to be) because there is simply no competition. Where parallel importing is good is that if you notice a product is a lot cheaper overseas (they usually are due to a bigger market) then you can import this product and sell it cheaper in NZ. This measn shops can charge a lower price.
Parallel imports (or grey market goods) were illegal in NZ until a new law was passed in 1998 removing the ban. New Zealand was one of the first countries to do so and I believe Malaysia, Japan and a few other small asian countries are the only ones that have lifted the ban. Most other countries still prohibit parallel imports. NZ is so far away from everythinmg at the bottom of the world that we often get looked over. We are so reliant on imports that prices were so high. I am glad the govt removed the ban as it has broken a lot of the monopolies and high prices.
Paraplle importing means you can import goods from any other country into New Zealand and sell them here without involving the NZ distributors or copyright holders.
Parallel imports are often confused with counterfeit or fake items but this is not the case. Counterfeit items have been made illegally without the consent of the trademark owner. Ie a China factory makes bags that say Louis Vuitton on them when the factory has not been contracted by the LV company and has nothing to do with the real Louis Vuitton company.
Parallel Imports are goods made by the actual company. The head company then sells their products into the marketplace ie to shops and wholesalers. These products can then be bought and shipped to another country. The Head company has made the products, they are the real genuine item - they have just been moved around.
The end benefit of parallel importing means that a shop can purchase the Levis overseas at a cheaper price than they can from the NZ distributor, this means they can sell to the public at a cheaper price thus forcing the local distributors to drop their prices. This is good for consumers because it means they are getting a fair market price and avoiding the monopolistic distributors.
Later I will elaborate more on parallel importing and spotlight a NZ company that has been very successful with parallel importing.
Why is parallel importing good? In short it means cheaper prices for in-demand products. Lets take a famous product for example, Levis. Levis has their head office in USA and in each country around the world they will have either a local office or local distributors for Levis jeans. The head company usually has an agreement to only supply the products to the distributor in each country. This means that if you want to sell this product in your shop (or whatever) you must purchase it from the local distributor.
Where this is bad is that effectively the local distributor has the monopoly over the product: ie if you want Levis in your shop you have to order it from the local distributor. And we all know monopolies are not good for prices. The local distributor will charge as high a price as they can because local shops cannot buy the products from elsewhere.
In New Zealand we are a long way away from the major business markets like the USA so we end up with very expensive prices (higher than they need to be) because there is simply no competition. Where parallel importing is good is that if you notice a product is a lot cheaper overseas (they usually are due to a bigger market) then you can import this product and sell it cheaper in NZ. This measn shops can charge a lower price.
Parallel imports (or grey market goods) were illegal in NZ until a new law was passed in 1998 removing the ban. New Zealand was one of the first countries to do so and I believe Malaysia, Japan and a few other small asian countries are the only ones that have lifted the ban. Most other countries still prohibit parallel imports. NZ is so far away from everythinmg at the bottom of the world that we often get looked over. We are so reliant on imports that prices were so high. I am glad the govt removed the ban as it has broken a lot of the monopolies and high prices.
Paraplle importing means you can import goods from any other country into New Zealand and sell them here without involving the NZ distributors or copyright holders.
Parallel imports are often confused with counterfeit or fake items but this is not the case. Counterfeit items have been made illegally without the consent of the trademark owner. Ie a China factory makes bags that say Louis Vuitton on them when the factory has not been contracted by the LV company and has nothing to do with the real Louis Vuitton company.
Parallel Imports are goods made by the actual company. The head company then sells their products into the marketplace ie to shops and wholesalers. These products can then be bought and shipped to another country. The Head company has made the products, they are the real genuine item - they have just been moved around.
The end benefit of parallel importing means that a shop can purchase the Levis overseas at a cheaper price than they can from the NZ distributor, this means they can sell to the public at a cheaper price thus forcing the local distributors to drop their prices. This is good for consumers because it means they are getting a fair market price and avoiding the monopolistic distributors.
Later I will elaborate more on parallel importing and spotlight a NZ company that has been very successful with parallel importing.
We are back
Well its been a little while since my last post - one month to be exact. Seems to be that time of year where things speed up. I have a little more spare time now so will be increasing the number of posts as I have a lot to say.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Review - Seminar: Mal Emery Masters of Cashflow
Mal Emery Masters of Cashflow Auckland October 2007
This seminar had its moments. One thing I wanted to complain about was the fact that Mike Filsaime wasn't their when he was in the brouchure. False advertising. I even paid $50 to go.
Other than that it wasn't as good as the 21st Century but still lots of good speakers.
Would I pay $50 to go to another of Mal seminars? Probably not.
Would I go if it was free - hey id go to anything free!
Mal this guy is hard to figure out. There was a lot of regurgitated generic business information I had heard at other seminars. It makes me wonder if all seminar guys get their power point and content from.
Some speakers were: Ted Nicholas, Adam Traffic
This seminar had its moments. One thing I wanted to complain about was the fact that Mike Filsaime wasn't their when he was in the brouchure. False advertising. I even paid $50 to go.
Other than that it wasn't as good as the 21st Century but still lots of good speakers.
Would I pay $50 to go to another of Mal seminars? Probably not.
Would I go if it was free - hey id go to anything free!
Mal this guy is hard to figure out. There was a lot of regurgitated generic business information I had heard at other seminars. It makes me wonder if all seminar guys get their power point and content from.
Some speakers were: Ted Nicholas, Adam Traffic
Review - Seminar: 21st Century Academy
Internet and Business Mastery October 2007 Auckland
Some how I was offered free tickets to this event (supposedly worth a bit of money) so I went along to checkit out. I had seen Jamie McIntyre speak a few years before and I was impressed. this event turned out to be one of the best I have been to yet.
It was 3 days long. First day was 9 am to 10 or 11 pm at night! It was worth it. Jamie spoke for most of the first day. About 8 hours. Lots of good content about general business, internet and property.
Day Two was a lot of internet people speaking. Lots of good content I took pages and pages of notes.
Day 3 was property and shares. Lots of good stuff
I would recommend going to one of their free seminars.
Some how I was offered free tickets to this event (supposedly worth a bit of money) so I went along to checkit out. I had seen Jamie McIntyre speak a few years before and I was impressed. this event turned out to be one of the best I have been to yet.
It was 3 days long. First day was 9 am to 10 or 11 pm at night! It was worth it. Jamie spoke for most of the first day. About 8 hours. Lots of good content about general business, internet and property.
Day Two was a lot of internet people speaking. Lots of good content I took pages and pages of notes.
Day 3 was property and shares. Lots of good stuff
I would recommend going to one of their free seminars.
Review - Auctionitis TradeMe Software
If you are running a trademe.co.nz business or aspire to you need to read more about this software.
This software is really amazing. It can automatically load your auctions without you having to be there! No more waiting up til 9pm on the computer just to load auctions at the peak times, just set and forget.
Over the coming weeks I will go into more depth about how I use Auctionitis.
This software is really amazing. It can automatically load your auctions without you having to be there! No more waiting up til 9pm on the computer just to load auctions at the peak times, just set and forget.
Over the coming weeks I will go into more depth about how I use Auctionitis.
First Blog is up
Okay. First Blog was written and just posted. Quite easy to do really.
But this brings me to my first query. The date of the post says it was yesterday Sunday. Today being Monday where I am in New Zealand. That is my first gripe. Not everyone lives in America.
So I spose its not a biggie but its a small point I though I should mention.
But this brings me to my first query. The date of the post says it was yesterday Sunday. Today being Monday where I am in New Zealand. That is my first gripe. Not everyone lives in America.
So I spose its not a biggie but its a small point I though I should mention.
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