28 | Busy firm moves with the times Loving the business: Phil Grant and Julie Hedley at their NZ Natural Clothing stor in Norswwood. Tararua: NZ Natural Clothing REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT Virginia Wright “But if you’ve got a good sock on, a sock that fits, that suits your footwear, and your feet you don’t know you’re wearing them...” Buying a business within a year of the Global Financial Crisis is far from ideal, and it took grit, courage and an ability to respond to the changing market for Phil Grant and Julie Hedley to emerge out the other side with their NZ Natural Clothing business intact. “For a decade we worked under ‘No8 wire’ conditions, if we could do it ourselves we would, and we did,” says Phil. The NZ Natural Clothing Brand (NZNC) was created by the already iconic Kiwi brand Norsewear in 1997 with the tourist market in mind. They still primarily market merino and possum-merino garments just as they did back then. Having bought the land and buildings where the Norsewear factory is, several retail stores, and the IP for NZNC, and seeing the value of what they’d bought disappearing, they knew they needed to diversify what they were offering in order to tap into a wider market while at the same time not reducing their number of stores around the country. NZ Natural Clothing’s retail presence is now two flagship stores, one in Norsewood and the other two hours away in Otaki, and they’ve expanded their offerings. As Phil says, “in the middle of summer not everyone wants to buy a pair of possum merino socks, or a merino jersey. We had the space so we hired a master carver who’s still working with us and opened art galleries with hand-carved artworks.” Apart from the artworks, master carver Jeff Bryan hand-carved the iconic wooden signs used to point people in the right direction as they browse the goods for sale. The two bricks and mortar stores which offer customers the chance to touch, feel, and try on the goods, support the thriving e-commerce business set up as the retail shops closed in the wake of the GFC, and, Phil believes, strongly feeds into their online success selling the warm, durable, iconic NZ natural fibre clothing for men, women, and children that are part and parcel of the NZNC brand. “We’re effectively retailers using Cut Make and Trim (CMT) manufacturers to make our own brand garments which vary from socks through to knitwear, but, New Zealand Natural Clothing combines our New Zealand made knitwear, with the two rural, heritage brands Norsewear and Swanndri, which all combine under the tagline ‘Wear With Confidence’,” They only buy New Zealand made socks with the majority still made under the brand Norsewear along with their accessories, onsite in the factory in Norsewood that dates back to 1968. With 100sqm of socks out of their 350sqm total of knitwear and Swanndri on display in Norsewood they feel they’ve earned their status as “socksperts”. “If you have socks that wear out within three weeks you get what you pay for. You’ll feel your footwear, you’ll feel the blisters, you’ll feel the holes appearing. But if you’ve got a good sock on, a sock that fits, that suits your footwear, and your feet you don’t know you’re wearing them, which means it’s one less thing to worry about,” says Phil. They’re now the leading tourist attraction In Tararua, with 40,000 visitors a year, and they have over the last 10 years transformed a former sheep paddock into the Wop Wops Wetlands. “We’ve now got 300 metres of lined paths and some very big, native, endangered tuna (eels). “We’ve turned a sheep paddock with a stream running through it into a free activity for the region,” says Phil with satisfaction. It’s part and parcel of the strong connection to community that comes with their retail presence which is part of what drives Phil and Julie’s love for their business, along with the relationships that underpin everything: their networks, whanau, and local and international customers whether in person or online. Business Advice | Accounting | Bookkeeping | HR Services Better Business, Better Life. rightway.co.nz Manufacturers of Norsewear socks Proud suppliers to New Zealand Natural Clothing www.norsewoodknitwear.co.nz
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