Monthly Archive for December, 2008

More Cake…

Published on December 22, 2008 in E-commerce and Mighty Ape. 1 Comment Tags: .

Last week Mighty Ape broke more records:

  • We set a new all-time daily sales record on Tuesday.
  • We set a new record for all-time weekly sales.
  • We set new records for weekly sales for DVDs, Books & Toys.
  • We set a new record for weekly traffic.

Its pretty reasonable to expect that more and more people are shopping online each Christmas and we’re certainly seeing evidence of that.

We’ve had our warehouse processing orders and customer service team answering messages over the weekend to make sure we are not swamped in these last few days before Christmas.

Maintaining a high level of service at this time of year takes a huge effort… and the whole team are certainly looking forward to the holidays! :)

And DVD isn’t exactly dead…

Published on December 15, 2008 in E-commerce and Mighty Ape. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Last week I blogged about the Blu Ray format gaining momentum, so it’s somewhat ironic that last week we actually set an all-time record for DVD orders in a week.

Sales of DVDs suggest that the DVD format is weathering the recession very well and our sales are significantly up on the same period last year. Its been suggested that during a recession, people tend to stay at home, watch TV, watch DVDs and play video games (all those forms of entertainment offer a higher “bang for the buck” when compared to going to the movies, eating out, etc).

While I’m at it… it should be noted that we also set records for highest books sales in a week and highest toy sales in a week…

Cake anyone? :)

Blu-Ray gaining ground…

Published on December 11, 2008 in E-commerce and Mighty Ape. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Dark KnightThe Dark Knight was released in New Zealand yesterday on both the DVD and Blu Ray formats and this release has highlighted that Blu-Ray is finally gaining some momentum in New Zealand.

For us, The Dark Knight is the first big theatrical release where the Blu Ray format has actually out-sold the standard DVD format.

While admittedly our customers tend to be early adopters with a gaming bias, it’s still very encouraging to see Blu Ray gaining traction locally.

While I’m talking DVDs, its also interesting to note that even a blockbuster like The Dark Knight can’t knock New Zealands own Outrageous Fortune Season 4 off the  #1 Top Seller spot. Just quietly, we’ve shipped well over 1000 Outrageous Fortune Season 4 DVDs in the first 4 weeks since release (to customers all over the world at that!)

Outrageous Fortune is proving to be one heck of a Kiwi success story… all four seasons are now in our all time Top 10 sellers.

Australia here we come…

Published on December 10, 2008 in E-commerce, Mighty Ape and Sport. 0 Comments Tags: .

I just spent two weeks in Australia on a mix of business and holiday. I must confess one of my main motivations was getting to The Gabba to watch the (once) mighty Black Caps take on the Aussies in the First Test. Even though the result wasn’t great, watching cricket at The Gabba was a great experience (its a fantastic ground for watching sport and television doesn’t do the ground justice).

The second part of our trip was spent on the Gold Coast. Its been 20 years since I’d been to the Gold Coast and that place has just exploded. While there I took the opportunity to catch up with one of Australia’s biggest entertainment distributors to discuss any opportunities in the Australian market.

After these discussions, its getting very very hard to ignore the much bigger market across the Tasman (especially since we already have infrastructure and staff in Australia running our www.gpstore.com.au site).

Australia here we come… :D