113 days ago

GrabOne has shut down and won't refund unredeemed vouchers

Brian from Mount Roskill

E-commerce deal website GrabOne has ceased trading after its owner went into liquidation today.
Daniel Stoneman and Neale Jackson of Calibre Partners were appointed liquidators of Global Marketplace New Zealand Limited, which operates the GrabOne business in New Zealand.
GrabOne’s website has disappeared, replaced by a message from the liquidators.
“Due to funding constraints, the business has ceased trading and the liquidators are immediately commencing a sales process for the company’s business and assets,” the liquidators said.
“As a result, the company will not be promoting any existing or future deals whilst in liquidation.”
The liquidators said the company was unable to provide refunds to customers who hold onto unredeemed vouchers.
“Consumers will need to take steps themselves - including contacting individual merchants - to assess how unredeemed vouchers will be treated.”
Retail expert and managing director of First Retail Group Chris Wilkinson said the GrabOne model became “quite a dated concept”.
“There was a lot of euphoria around that type of model around a decade ago.
“It’s almost like the catalogue model of digital marketing, where catalogues were superseded by e-commerce. It’s a legacy digital marketing model.”
Wilkinson said a decade ago deal websites tended to be nationwide models but over time became more localised.
“The deals were always typically good, often to help businesses get some cashflow and to reach new markets.
“Particularly as time went on, they became a very localised response, and it really was down to smaller businesses who needed a boost and were prepared to cut the prices.”
New Zealand Media and Entertainment (NZME), publishers of the New Zealand Herald, sold GrabOne in 2021 to Global Marketplace New Zealand for $17.5 million.
GrabOne was founded in 2010 as a 50/50 venture between IdeaHQ - controlled by entrepreneur Shane Bradley - and then Herald publisher APN. APN progressively bought out Bradley’s stake, taking full control in 2013 in a deal worth up to $12.2m.
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More messages from your neighbours
3 days ago

Even Australians get it - so why not Kiwis???

Markus from Green Bay

“Ten years ago, if a heatwave as intense as last week’s record-breaker had hit the east coast, Australia’s power supply may well have buckled. But this time, the system largely operated as we needed, despite some outages.

On Australia’s main grid last quarter, renewables and energy storage contributed more than 50% of supplied electricity for the first time, while wholesale power prices were more than 40% lower than a year earlier.

[…] shifting demand from gas and coal for power and petrol for cars is likely to deliver significantly lower energy bills for households.

Last quarter, wind generation was up almost 30%, grid solar 15% and grid-scale batteries almost tripled their output. Gas generation fell 27% to its lowest level for a quarter century, while coal fell 4.6% to its lowest quarterly level ever.

Gas has long been the most expensive way to produce power. Gas peaking plants tend to fire up only when supply struggles to meet demand and power prices soar. Less demand for gas has flowed through to lower wholesale prices.”

Full article: www.theguardian.com...


If even Australians see the benefit of solar - then why is NZ actively boycotting solar uptake? The increased line rental for electricity was done to make solar less competitive and prevent cost per kWh to rise even more than it did - and electricity costs are expected to rise even more. Especially as National favours gas - which is the most expensive form of generating electricity. Which in turn will accelerate Climate Change, as if New Zealand didn’t have enough problems with droughts, floods, slips, etc. already.

18 days ago

Time to Tickle Your Thinker 🧠

The Riddler from The Neighbourly Riddler

If a zookeeper had 100 pairs of animals in her zoo, and two pairs of babies are born for each one of the original animals, then (sadly) 23 animals don’t survive, how many animals do you have left in total?

Do you think you know the answer? Simply 'Like' this post and we'll post the answer in the comments below at 2pm on the day!

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19 days ago

Poll: As a customer, what do you think about automation?

The Team from Neighbourly.co.nz

The Press investigates the growing reliance on your unpaid labour.

Automation (or the “unpaid shift”) is often described as efficient ... but it tends to benefit employers more than consumers.

We want to know: What do you think about automation?
Are you for, or against?

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As a customer, what do you think about automation?
  • 9.5% For. Self-service is less frustrating and convenient.
    9.5% Complete
  • 43.3% I want to be able to choose.
    43.3% Complete
  • 47.2% Against. I want to deal with people.
    47.2% Complete
2330 votes