Real Nappies has chosen World Wide Access for its UK market entry, building on the success already being achieved in the United States for Real Nappies with the World Wide Access on-line sales model.

“After working successfully with World Wide Access in the U.S., we knew that they were the company we wanted to launch us into the UK,” said Liz Mole, founder of Real Nappies. “They are a great team to work with, and we like their expertise in on-line selling and promotion and the low market entry costs. World Wide Access are definitely our first choice of partner to work with in conquering new markets.”

The Real Nappies range features the Real Nappies Birth To Potty Pack which includes everything new parents need in the way of reusable cloth nappies and accessories, all in one box. Real Nappies also offer Essentials Packs and Top-Up Packs for each age and stage, and the Real Nappies Bioliner nappy liners which are very popular with parents for their strength and softness.

In the UK the environmental benefits of reusable nappies are well-understood and their use is encouraged nationwide, particularly by local councils which offer financial incentives to parents through schemes such as Real Nappies For London. New Zealand’s Real Nappies-brand reusable nappies will qualify for this and similar schemes throughout the UK.

World Wide Access will export Real Nappies cloth nappy products to the UK, store them in its UK warehouses, sell them on-line through its various UK sales channels and manage order fulfilment and customer service with its automated on-line sales systems. In the United States, Real Nappies products are available for on-line purchase at RealNappiesUSA.com.

This growth in on-line retail is corroborated by Internet analyst firm comScore, which released statistics showing that second-quarter retail e-commerce spending increased 9 percent over the second quarter in 2009, saying, ”This growth rate represented the third consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth following a year of flat or negative growth rates.”

Together these reports confirm an important trend for companies selling overseas with World Wide Access; not only is the scale of on-line retail in the United States vast compared to most other countries, it is also increasing as a proportion of the total retail sector. In-market on-line retail is the best way to reach consumers all across America quickly.

E-commerce in the United States is estimated by many analysts at between 5 and 7 percent of the US$3.7 trillion retail sector; the U.S. Census Bureau recently reported e-commerce at US$148 billion annually, or 4% of all retail sales.

By comparison, e-commerce within Australia is just three percent of the retail sector according to a July 2010 report by analyst firm Frost & Sullivan, and we estimate e-commerce in New Zealand to be less than 1% of all retail sales.

Cariboo bassinets and cots are hand-crafted at Cariboo’s base in rural North Canterbury and exported world-wide. The Cariboo range includes the Cariboo Classic Crib (Bassinet), Folding Crib, Gentle Motions Crib, Change Table and the Cariboo Classic Cot, each of which has a range of colour choices and cleverly-designed complimentary add-on options.

It was a period of just six weeks from the decision to proceed with World Wide Access to having a fully-operational in-market UK on-line sales capability. This brief timeframe demonstrates the rapid time-to-market that World Wide Access can achieve for New Zealand suppliers. The timetable was able to be accelerated because Cariboo had products already in the UK.

Cariboo products are now stocked at World Wide Access warehouses in the United Kingdom, which enables the cariboocribs.co.uk webstore to provide guaranteed delivery times to UK customers, and to monitor inventory levels for each product in real-time so as to ensure that orders taken can be fulfilled immediately. These are capabilities essential to providing a world-class level of on-line customer service.

Previously Cariboo had employed local sales staff and a wholesale distribution market entry strategy, aiming to have UK retail stores stock Cariboo products. Despite the positive reception the Cariboo range of quality nursery furniture received, and initial sales success, the conventional distribution approach ultimately proved unsatisfactory. This prompted the move to World Wide Access and its new model for export sales.

Carol McGeady, Cariboo Managing Director, said, “One of the things we particularly like about going with World Wide Access is the ability it will give us to communicate directly with customers through website facilities such as a blog and product information and question-and-answer pages. Our people here at Cariboo know our products the best and it’s important to us to be in touch with our customers to provide them the best possible service.”

The new Cariboo Blog is part of the World Wide Access on-line promotion infrastructure that now becomes available to Cariboo, which includes integrated email marketing and a brand presence on Facebook and Twitter social media sites.

What he’s created with World Wide Access is so needed. There are so many excellent companies throughout New Zealand who have poured their hearts and souls into their businesses.

And there seems to me to be two big things that stand in the way of their success.

One of those is capital in this country and that’s a long story that I won’t start on here. But even that has relatively simple answers.

And then there’s marketing and distribution in a highly competitive world where we usually don’t understand the nuances and methods of the local economies overseas. Its hard even to begin to know what’s going to work and what’s a waste of money…

I met Paul at Foo Camp, which is in itself a slightly otherworldly experience. One of the noticeable things about Paul is that his face makes a natural smile, and he started to tell some of us (who were drinking coffee instead of attending another session, cos our heads were full !) about what he was doing . He knew a lot about how to sell New Zealand products in America. Usually Kiwis would be reticent about that, and despite his years living in the USA, Paul has retained some of that. But the enormity of the opportunity and the massive movements in on-line retailing that we knew very little of, and just the sheer scale of the opportunity for NZ products was compelling. And the fact that he’d found a way to get through all that was pretty exciting. I watched as he showed me on-line sales happening in real time while he drank his coffee.

It was pretty compelling, and there were two other Christchurch people there so Paul stood no chance of avoiding our city. He was down here the following week seeing at least half a dozen companies that we thought would benefit…

That was in February, and its great to see that already two Canterbury manufacturers are on board with World Wide Access and getting their products in front of on-line customers overseas.