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Pop-up pick-up point at Heads for Village shoppersTo attract customers and support their livelihoods, a Mangawhai Village business owner has also been thinking outside the box, with one idea involving, well, a box, in the form of a large container. Placed at the Mangawhai Heads old fire station site, the container is now a product pickup point for customers who still want to buy items from Village stores but do not want to face the traffic queues. Brainchild of the idea, ‘Home and Hobbies’ director Beth Stone says Kaipara council ‘have been very helpful considering the mess of the roadworks’ and provided the container ‘free of charge’, to help keep Village businesses commercially viable. “We can utilise it for any items customers order by phone, email or online. Businesses may drop anything they wish to be taken to the pick-up point, into Home and Hobbies before 3.45pm each week day, and at 4pm one of our team will take the delivery to the container for people to come pick up,” she says. “Each package must be clearly labelled with the customer name. Payment arrangements are strictly care of the business concerned however, as we won’t be collecting any money.” A ‘pay-it-forward’ system has also been proposed to support the Village hospitality businesses, similar to the one in operation during the Covid-19 lockdown, she says. “The idea is that people will order and pay for some item in advance, such as ten coffees, and receive a voucher which will state any special conditions on it. The voucher will then be redeemed at a time and date to suit the purchaser.” Stone’s youngest son Louis Prouting, developer of Kaipara advertising brand management company ‘Cream’, has also developed a website again ‘free of charge’ which features links to Village business websites and Facebook pages, to make contacting the stores and services easier for customers. “Our business is down so much it's unreal… can’t even cover wages,” she says. “All our businesses are suffering from the effect of the roadworks, so this is a good opportunity to try something a little different.” KDC community advisor Gail Fotheringham praised the business owner’s initiative at the road works meeting, saying that ‘if you come up with ideas, we will support you any way we can’. |
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