When Paul Grey says the internet doesn’t conquer the tyranny of distance, it might strike you that his statement borders on heresy, coming from a man whose business is all about using the power of online to shift New Zealand products overseas. Given that Grey also runs his business remotely from a rural idyll in Pukekohe, south Auckland, we should probably just start gathering matches and a man-sized stake.
But hang on. Grey — founder and managing director of World Wide Access — knows something about this. While chief technology officer at legendary New Zealand tech exporter Peace Software, he spent a decade in the US doing business and became familiar with the culture. Americans, he learned, will not buy from offshore-based website firms — not easily, anyway, and not in any numbers. That tyranny still applies.
“You can create a website here, take orders online and that’s all very well. But to an American customer you are still foreign. Why would they give their credit card to someone foreign? If they don’t like the product, where do they return it? It all adds up to the fact that if you are selling to America from outside it, you essentially lock yourself out of 90 per cent of the market without even realising.” But establishing a presence in the US can be crushingly expensive and high-risk. “America is the land of the biggest opportunity — online retail sales alone in 2007 reached $US166 billion — but it’s also the hardest challenge,” says Grey.
His big idea was to offer New Zealand suppliers looking to break into the US and the UK (other countries are in the pipeline) a way to enjoy an in-market advantage without actually being there.
World Wide Access will ship the goods, store them in warehouses scattered around those countries, handle sales using a highly automated system that offers local payment methods and overnight delivery, and use web stores and other online promotional methods. As you’d expect given Grey’s background, it’s all enabled by kick- ass tailored software and other technology.
Among the Kiwi exporters who’ve signed up since he launched in 2008 are Merino Kids and Cariboo — the upmarket nursery furniture maker.
Look at the model in parts and there’s nothing that hasn’t already been done, says Grey. “But the idea of putting it all together hasn’t been done anywhere in the world. We think we’re really on to something in terms of breaking down barriers to market for New Zealand products.”