Page 24 - HW May-June 2020

nz made
CHANGE IS A constant they say and retail thought leader, Massey University Professor and the Sir Stephen Tindall Chair in Retail Management, Jonathan Elms (www.massey.ac.nz), for one believes New Zealand retail had already reached a “tipping point” before COVID-19 raised its head and mandated rapid and some say permanent change for everyone.
e pandemic, however, has accelerated what was already happening, he explains: “COVID-19 has served as a trigger
to move things along a lot more quickly and a lot more signi cantly.
“Consumers’ shopping behaviours and practices have changed and I think they will continue to change and unfold over the next months and years.
“I think the whole of the retail industry has been on the brink of something, the brink of change, and all this has just simply exaggerated the situation.
“I also think there’s been a shift across everything that businesses are doing. So the likes of Mitre 10 and Bunnings etc have had to think strategically through everything that they’re doing, from beginning to end, rather than super cially tinkering around the edges, which perhaps they may have been doing before...
“Now is a perfect opportunity to bring in changes, possibly quite radical ones, particularly in terms of business models, practices and processes.
“With everybody in the mindset of change and discontinuity, I think now is also therefore the best opportunity to make changes.”
Seize the day, advises Prof Elms: “I think it’s the right time for things to happen in terms of positive outcomes.”
IS BUYING LOCAL A NEW NORMAL?
With a rmly local interest, Ryan Jennings, Executive Director of Buy New Zealand Made (www.buynz.org.nz), agrees “consumer behaviour has shifted”, and that COVID-19 has “changed the environment in which businesses operate and, as we continue to face uncertainty, now is not the time for business as usual.”
Is it really the “new normal” that Kiwis are considering, rst and foremost, a local product, solution or provider, rather than looking overseas?
As you’d expect, Ryan Jennings has it that the fact that
a business is New Zealand owned and a product is New Zealand made are “more important than ever for Kiwis when purchasing”.
“Buy from people you know. If you recognise them, if you know the business, you know that money is going to cycle around a few more times in New Zealand. e NZ Made logo is one way to recognise that your money is likely to circle around here.”
Ryan says that the current pandemic conditions, unlike previous crises like the GFC or SARS, mean Kiwis have been “forced to stop our previous habits... and we’ve replaced them with new habits.”
Will these habits stick? “We’re not easily going to go back to old habits because that’s not how human psychology works,” he believes.
What’s di erent compared to previous crises? “ e di erence in this period of time is being made very clear to people by which products got restocked in supermarkets quicker, what was New Zealand made and what wasn’t.
“And that’s had an e ect on people, knowing that the people that actually fed us through this crisis have been New Zealand
Too soon to be
switching to local?
In early May, a Mitre 10 NZ press release shared some outline data from insights platform Yabble (www.yabblezone.com), which “found a groundswell of support for helping New Zealand get back on its feet economically”.
Yabble’s ndings indicated that as many as 70% of Kiwis “intended to shop local as much as possible” and 60% “will purchase more New Zealand products”.
Perhaps too quick off the mark, I immediately ask Mitre 10 (www.mitre10.co.nz) what the co-op is thinking in terms of its product offering in response to the clear preference to support local as expressed in the quoted survey?
Chris Fisher, GM Merchandise, came back with the following measured response:“We are going through a signi cant time of change globally.
“What the world looks like on the other side of all this, in terms of local supplier capacity and capability versus that of global suppliers, is yet to be understood.
“Whatever happens, our focus will remain on ensuring that we have the best range of products available for our customers.
“In the meantime, as our stores are all locally owned, they have some exibility in what and from where they source.”
We’ll ask this question again of retailers and merchants in the coming weeks and months.
22 NZHJ | MAY/JUNE 2020
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