Holy Cow – Gateway Wellington Has Relocated

Auckland, New Zealand, May 28, 2001 - PC specialist Gateway is today trading from a brand-new Wellington store.

Now located in the Harbour City Centre, Panama Street, the Gateway store will be hard to miss. Adorned with the company’s famous black and white cow spot branding, it is set to make an impact of bovine proportions in its new neighbourhood, starting with a massive sale and giveaway campaign to celebrate the move.

Anyone struggling to find the new location should look out for a cow wandering Lambton Quay – she’ll be able to point customers in the right direction of Gateway’s fantastic relocation competition. An Essential 800 (RRP $1,999 + delivery) will be up for grabs just by checking out the new store. Passers-by can simply come in, fill in the entry form and go in the draw. The competition will run for a month, with the lucky winner being drawn in-store on Saturday, 30th June.

The relocation sale will offer big discounts on a range of products, giving customers the ideal opportunity to buy the best in consumer PCs and accessories at discount prices without sacrificing quality or service.

The opening celebrations will also include a day of activities on Saturday 9th June. Families are invited to come along and test drive Gateway’s products for themselves, and of course go in the draw to win. Home office hardware will appeal to Mums and Dads, teens will be able to discover Gateway PCs are perfect for gaming, and kids of all ages will enjoy playing with accessories like the new web cams. Face painting will also be on offer to cater for the less IT-minded folk.

Andrew Olsen, New Zealand Retail Sales Manager, is excited about the move; “I’m a Wellingtonian from way back and I’m really excited about the new Harbour City Centre location. This store is incredibly accessible, and there is a great atmosphere down here.

“The old place (cnr. Victoria and Hunter Streets) was good, but I think our new address will be more visible to two of our most important customer groups – home-based PC users, and small businesses. Our whole business philosophy is about making things easy for our customers. Anything which assists us do that is great as far as we’re concerned.”

Gateway, founded on an Iowa cattle-farm in 1985 (hence the cow-spot branding), is a business about people. It aims to humanize the digital revolution by providing customers with friendly, honest computer advice without the jargon. Award winning built-to-order PCs, accessories and superior services, combined with a range of educational programmes for real people, have helped Gateway achieve international success.

Central to the “humanizing” ethic is a desire to help people make the most out of their technology. And that’s just what Gateway’s new training initiatives aim to do. Already hugely successful in the US, these three-hour training programmes will be launched in Auckland this week. The courses provide inexperienced PC-users with an understanding of how to navigate their PC, communicate via email, and surf the Internet. Gateway Training programmes will be rolled out in both Wellington and Christchurch in coming months.

“There is a lot in the pipeline for Gateway at the moment, the next several months will be very big for us.

“We want to be perceived as the company to come to for the best in friendly advice and quality products. Of course, this applies to consumers throughout the country, but I’d like to think our new Wellington position, and the increased visibility the move has created, will encourage more locals to overcome their fear of PCs and IT, and empower themselves. Maybe we’ll even be able to turn the Cultural Capital of New Zealand into the country’s Computer Capital too.”

ENDS.

About Gateway

Since beginning life as a two-man start-up in 1985, Gateway has grown to be one of America's 250 largest corporations, with sales last year in excess of US$7.5 billion and 3.5 million PCs. The company has 23,000 employees worldwide, including 300 staff in Australasia. Purchases in the region are processed and delivered directly from Gateway's state-of-the-art ISO9002 manufacturing facility in Malacca, Malaysia.
(2000 Gateway. All rights reserved. All brands and product names are trademarks of their respective companies.)

Web site: www.nz.gateway.com

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