Page 4 - OPE March 2021

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Local and International News
Outdoor power events
EVEN THOUGH NEW ZEALAND is currently seeing a return to some sense of
normality, in the rest of the world, outdoor power and related events have been severely disrupted by the global pandemic.
Take the massive Cologne trade fair spoga+gafa, which has had to be postponed from May-June to August and this year will be supplemented by a digital trade fair called spoga+gafa@home.
In the States, the National Hardware Show’s 75th anniversary event originally planned for May will now take place in October. The show will remain in the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, but will move to the newly opened West Hall.
Meanwhile, in Europe, the next Eisenwarenmesse or International Hardware Fair in Cologne will now take place in early March 2022, having been stymied both this year and last by the pandemic.
Here at home, however, the 40th edition of the Auckland Home Show was postponed at the very last minute due to the change in Auckland to Alert Level 2 and will now take place in September.
Preparations for the February event were well and truly underway, with more than 400 exhibitor businesses ready to pack in from this Sunday, and with ticket sales up over 50% on previous years.
Staying with local events, the largest networking, trade and education event on the New Zealand arb industry calendar – the 2021 NZ ARB Annual Conference – is scheduled to follow a weekend of NZ ARB Husqvarna National Tree Climbing Championship action in Wellington in late November.
See below for a round-up of some of the most important dates for the rest of 2021 and into 2022:
2021
March 18-20: Central Districts Field Days, Fielding, NZ. www.cdfielddays.co.nz
March 24-26: 2021 South Island Agricultural Field Days, Kirwee, NZ. www.siafd.co.nz
April 9-11: Autumn HomeXPO, Christchurch, NZ. www.autumnhomexpo.co.nz
June 16-19: Fieldays 2021, Hamilton, NZ. www.fieldays.co.nz
Aug 8-10: Spoga+gafa, Cologne, Germany. www.spogagafa.com
Aug 11-12: HIANZ Conference, Queenstown, NZ. www.hianz.net.nz/2021-conference/
Sept 14-16: GLEE & Pawexpo, Birmingham, UK. www.gleebirmingham.com
Oct 7-10: Waikato Home & Garden Show, Hamilton, NZ. www.waikatohomeshow.co.nz
Oct 20-22: GIE+EXPO & Hardscape North America, Kentucky, USA. http://gie-expo.com/
Oct 21-23: National Hardware Show, Las Vegas, USA. www.nationalhardwareshow.com
Nov 27-28: NZ Arb Husqvarna National Tree Climbing Championship, Wellington, NZ. https://www.nzarb.org.nz/tree-climbing
Nov 28-30: NZ Arb Annual Conference 2021, Wellington, NZ. www.nzarb.org.nz/tree-climbing
2022
Jan 25-28: IPM ESSEN Horticulture Trade Fair, Essen, Germany. www.ipm-essen.de/world-trade-fair/
OUTDOOR POWER TECHNOLOGY
If you’re not online you are missing out
04 NZOUTDOORPOWEREQUIPMENT MARCH-JUNE2021
moreat www.facebook.com/NZOPEmagazine
ALTHOUGH SOME OPERATORS in the New Zealand outdoor power sector still
seem reluctant to get into selling online, the recent surge to online buying during lockdown – as underlined by recent numbers from NZ Post among others – clearly indicates that retail needs to commit to the digital domain and sooner rather than later.
Take NZ Post’s eCommerce Spotlight research into how COVID-19 has impacted the way Kiwis shop online, which shows that New Zealanders spent a total of $5.8 billion online in 2020, about $1.2 billion more than in 2019.
“This is an incredible result,” says NZ Post General Manager of Business Marketing, Chris Wong.
“Our research throughout 2020 showed that online shopping was continuing to increase, and now that the year has finished we’ve conducted research that shows Kiwis spent more online last year than ever before, with 2020 online sales up 25% on the year before.
“The good news for Kiwi businesses is that 71% of all online spend was with domestic retailers.”
He continues: “2020 was the year online shopping stepped on the accelerator. Early in the year, before COVID-19 started
to impact us in New Zealand, spending numbers were up about 12-15% in the first few months.
“Then COVID-19 hit and this changed the shopping landscape in a major way, especially during lockdown when physical stores were inaccessible to most.
“Those already online spent more often across more sectors and those who hadn’t tried online shopping before discovered its ease and convenience – with more than 305,000 New Zealanders shopping online for the first time ever in 2020.”
What’s also important is that currently online purchasing only makes up 11% of all New Zealand shopping, compared to 20% plus in the UK, US and China, which suggests that, despite 2020’s online boom, there is plenty of room for further growth.
www.nzpost.co.nz