Can Australian tech start-up Shippit help Kiwi retailers stay in the game against Amazon?

The company positions itself as one that can help retailers grow their businesses and control costs in the face of competition from foreign retailers such as Amazon and Temu.

“Shippit’s secret sauce is really the matchmaking service that orchestrates the decisions (for retailers) on which courier to use,” Hango-Zada said.

“Shippit’s primary advantage is that we want to offer discounted prices in the New Zealand market because we leverage the purchasing power of the platform and the total order volume of our retailers, rather than letting them deal on their own in a one-to-one relationship with a carrier.

“We help retailers save time when it comes to order fulfillment… our workflow improvements allow them to pick and pack orders efficiently.”

Shippit also offers comprehensive shipment tracking for the recipient.

“From the moment they check out to the moment they receive the goods, they know exactly when they will get it and at what stage of the journey it is,” Hango-Zada said.

Hango-Zada founded the company in 2014 with longtime friend William On, who is also co-CEO.

The couple met on their first day of studies at the University of New South Wales.

“As he (William) likes to say, it was love at first sight,” Hango-Zada joked.

“We were kind of the oddballs in that class back then.”

But their path to becoming the head of Shippit began after experiences in the corporate world and a catalyst event – a frustrating delivery situation when He tried to order a vacuum cleaner online and ended up having to pick it up in person from the warehouse because he missed the delivery, Hango-Zada said.

“I came to know New Zealand through FMCG (fast moving consumer goods), so I worked for Procter & Gamble and Unilever for a while.

“So I know the New Zealand market quite well from a retail perspective.”

Meanwhile, “technological brains” are in action.

“Will has a background in technical consulting… specialising in helping banks drive digital change. He helped NAB launch its first consumer banking offering with UBank.”

The Amazon effect

Hango-Zada said Amazon, which launched in Australia in 2017 and began shipping to New Zealand in 2021, had changed customer expectations for online shopping.

“We think Amazon is a great competitor to any retail market. The benefit of that is, of course, the consumer,” he said.

“Five years ago (in Australia) it was very rare to think you could buy something online and have it delivered the next day.

“They broke down that barrier of, ‘Oh, I have to wait for something… it’s going to be too expensive to ship it.’

“But the detrimental effect is that the sovereign retailers in any given market, once Amazon enters, typically see less sales volume going to them and more going to Amazon. What local retailers really need is a way to diversify their costs and keep them under control so they can effectively compete with Amazon,” he said.

“Our job is to help retailers stay in business.”

Cameron Smith is a journalist based in Auckland and Herald business team. He joined Herald in 2015 and covered business and sports. He reports on topics including retail, small business, the workplace and macroeconomics.