Ezibuy Expands Domestic Retail Presence

Media release, Tuesday 31 October 2006

Ezibuy Expands Domestic Retail Presence

EziBuy, Australasia’s largest apparel and home décor catalogue company, is expanding its retail presence in New Zealand.

EziBuy’s increased focus on multi-channel retailing will see its traditional retail offering expanded through the roll out of four stores nationwide in the next six months.

The first of the new stores will open in Hamilton on 27 November. Further stores are planned for Tauranga, Wellington and Auckland.

“The expansion of EziBuy’s retail network forms a crucial part of our drive to strengthen our position as a multi-channel retailer. It’s about meeting the needs of our continually growing customer base and presenting it with innovative and engaging retail options,” says EziBuy Chief Executive Mary Devine.

EziBuy’s multi-channel retail model allows customers to purchase its products via mail-order, telephone, its website and instore. Central to the model is its catalogue offering which showcases the company’s apparel and homeware brands to more than half a million Australasian customers.

The increased retail presence will give EziBuy’s New Zealand customers improved access to its traditional retail offering. Store sites have been selected based upon existing customer base demographics.

We will not only be improving customer access to the retail offering, but will present an enhanced retail environment delivering greater choice and a more exciting shopping experience,” says Mary Devine.

The new stores will feature concept fitouts to best showcase EziBuy’s women’s and men’s apparel and homeware ranges. Store designs will be modelled around EziBuy’s individual brands and product ranges to best reflect brand personalities and styles.

Mary Devine says the retail expansion plan is key to EziBuy’s growth strategy and a sign of the company’s continued commitment to investing in New Zealand, where it was founded and has its operational base.

The retail expansion plan is being rolled out within months of EziBuy officially opening its multi-million dollar distribution centre in Palmerston North - the largest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. Last week the company won The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in New Zealand Award for Supply Chain Management in recognition of the state-of-the art technologies and systems employed in the distribution centre.

Background – EziBuy

EziBuy Limited is the largest fashion clothing and home décor catalogue company in Australasia. It is a New Zealand-owned private company with a turnover in excess of $160 million and employs more than 800 staff.

The company was established in Palmerston North in 1978 by brothers Peter and Gerard Gillespie. It expanded to Australia in 1992.

EziBuy makes its core fashion and homeware collections available through catalogues and via its website. It also has retail stores in New Zealand and Australia. The company’s first mailing list of organisations and clubs were drawn from telephone books. Thirty years on, EziBuy produces over 30 catalogues that are mailed to more than half a million people in New Zealand and Australia, and dispatches an average of 9,000 parcels a day to Australasian shoppers.

EziBuy’s catalogues showcase the company’s core womenswear brands – Capture, Emerge, Grace Hill, Glory and Urban – plus the extended choice offered by exclusive European brands, Together and Apart. Sara, a 16+ women’s fashion collection, completes the range.

EziBuy also provides corporate apparel through Profile, its corporate apparel division, which has led the New Zealand market in providing branded clothing solutions to a range of blue-chip clients and large multi-nationals for 13 years.

A true Kiwi success story, EziBuy is one of the few New Zealand companies that have successfully integrated into the Australian market and has established itself as a trans-Tasman household name.

EziBuy cemented its presence in the Australian market when in February 2002 it secured the direct database from Australia’s largest catalogue retailer, Coles Myers.

Today, Australian customers account for over 50 per cent of EziBuy’s total business.

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