Name change comes with store makeover

JULIA WADE

A long-standing popular multi-product shop has been undergoing a makeover in the last few months complete with a recent name change.

Home & Hobbies, known as Bazaar World since 2014, has been renamed after the store’s staff offered their customers a chance to come up with an appropriate title via a three week competition held in February.

After sifting through over 60 entries, the judges – aka store owner Beth Stone, sales consultant Nicky Thompson and retail assistant Hannah Mills – came to a quick and unanimous decision.

“We decided 9-year-old Zoe Farmer’s entry conveyed what we are trying to achieve with the shop,” Thompson, who has at least 12 years’ experience in pharmacy and hardware retail, says. “We consciously want to be selling good quality products… and we’re aiming to be known as the place to come for art supplies as well as interesting items. We have also listened to our customers and are moving forward on local products.”

For her winning suggestion, Zoe was awarded a $50 H&H gift card, Whittakers chocolates and a bottle of Prosecco sparkling wine, which Zoe’s Mum is apparently ‘looking after’. The Year 5 Mangawhai Beach School student says she was very happy to win.

“I thought that a new name would be exciting and should tell customers about the sort of things you find in the shop,” she says.

Although H&H has become physically smaller, the aesthetically pleasing rearrangement of new shelving including an arty stack of rustic wooden crates, is still stocked with an array of merchandise along with new items gin and cheese kits, art and craft from New Zealand artists, locally made skincare and candle range, wooden toys from a Mangawhai craftsman and quality plastic containers.

A ‘conscious range’ of house cleaning items such as eco-friendly cleaners and compostable rubbish bags are also available.

In the past the store has held a number of successful evening events based on their art supplies and brewing kits, designed to encourage customers, and each other, to ‘give it ago’, and will be looking to offer similar workshops in the future. Over the next few months however, the teams

focus is introducing and ‘trialing and erroring’ new products Thompson says.

“We’re aiming to expand the hardware, car maintenance, gardening and fishing areas over the next six months and fully stock the art section. Over winter we’ll be focusing on the craft areas, especially wools and knitting equipment, as I know a number of knitters who make lovely items for the prenatal ward in Whangarei Hospital shop here,” she says. “We not only want to provide products the community want, we also want to provide a good service and support those who support the community.”

The shop’s new signage is due to be changed around Easter.

Home & Hobbies owner Beth Stone (left) with ‘awesome’ retail assistant Hannah Mills, sales consultant Nicky Thompson and renaming competition winner Zoe Farmer, says ‘it was just time for a change’.