Two ticks for Noel Leeming retail website

By Stephen Ballantyne

Friday 9th August 2002

With the opening of its new online store, www.noelleeming.co.nz, Noel Leeming claims to have opened what it hopes will eventually grow to be its largest single retail outlet.

Though not unique - www.farmers.co.nz carries similar products - the new Noel Leeming website is much more comprehensive than its competition. Instead of carrying only a selection of items from the store's range, it sells everything that can be found in the largest Noel Leeming stores and backs up the range with a mass of manufacturers' data about every product. Even comparison shoppers who may ultimately prefer to buy from someone else will find the Noel Leeming site worth visiting if only for information.

Driven by the heavyweight (and expensive) IBM WebSphere 3.5.1, the site took the efforts of as many as nine developers over a period of two years and is physically hosted in Christchurch. According to Noel Leeming's retail general manager, John Melford, the selection of WebSphere was made after consultation with overseas retailers such as Sears and Macy's in the US.

Lessons were also learned from past failures, most notably Flying Pig, from which it was concluded that a pure online presence without an associated physical organisation familiar to shoppers was unlikely to succeed on the New Zealand market.

It is intended that there will be a kiosk in every store where customers and staff will be able to refer to the site to reference product information or order goods not carried by smaller stores.

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