Specialist Retail Jobs
 

Hi, anyone help in letting me know what the job market is like in NZ for specialist roles in Retail? I have vast experience at senior management level both in stores and head office, and I’m currently working in Supply Chain Category Management. Also, is it too late to look to move to NZ at 47yrs old?

Re: Specialist Retail Jobs
 

Age limit is 55 I think so no worries there
can't help with anything else

Re: Specialist Retail Jobs
 

Best time of year is usually about now for recruitment in NZ but Covid will have munted most things to the extent that it hard to advise how to proceed.

Best you check latest on the official immigration site to see if any avenues for you in regards to obtaining a visa (assuming you need one) as many things have and continue to change because of Covid response - supermarket workers were deemed essential / critical workers during our lockdowns and therefore the usual visa requirements were relaxed and exceptions made to enable shops to recruit more people to meet the increased demand. I don't have a clue really whether the current global supply chain issues we are experiencing would translate to a requirement for more or less people in the retail sector but many shops continue to look bare and seem to be struggling. e.g. Harvey Norman, Briscoes and Rebel Sports haven't been advertising sales at every ad break. :ohmy:

Check out Trademe and Seek for roles that you might be interested in and see what is the state of play with numbers of roles being advertised.

Re: Specialist Retail Jobs
 

Has there ever been a day when Briscoes did not have a 'sale' on? ;)

I have found supply issues recently. I tried to buy a new shirt last week - the store (a chain) did not have the size in the style that I wanted (I am not huge nor tiny so am not out of the ordinary). The person at the store checked the computer and found that none of their stores in New Zealand had the size I wanted. He told me that their stock comes from Australia and they had no idea when any more might arrive. That is the danger of living on a remote outpost.

As for the OP, I don't know anything about their industry. In twelve years living here I have never come across anybody in that line of work which might suggest there is not a lot of it.

Re: Specialist Retail Jobs
 

Are you referring to FMCG retail? or could you highlight category areas?

AI is starting to replace category work, and the old space management is disappearing with the move to MFC fulfilment

Re: Specialist Retail Jobs
 

Not sure what most of that means but remember this is New Zealand we're talking about not a lot of choice of retailers - we've only just moved to internet shopping and some still struggling to get there properly, or at least in a way that I was accustomed to in the UK 16 years ago. We have two big box retailers, Kmart and The Warehouse and two supermarket 'chains' that operate more like independent owner operated set ups. I know nothing of their back office or storage set ups but most operate the pile it high on the shop floor mark it up by 100% (looking at you Kathmandu et al) and then offer it at a pretendy 50% discount and then bugger all replacement of new stock once it's gone out of stock or out of season.

Re: Specialist Retail Jobs
 

MFC is micro fulfilment center

• Auckland has around 250 supermarkets processing a combined 500,000+ households per week
• An advanced MFC can process 500,000 to 800,000 orders per week.
• Countdowns technology is limited to 10,000 per week so not really a contender

The supply issue will be with us for another 2 years. China is exploiting its exporting by demanding return of containers as soon as they are unloaded. Therefore no chance for USA exports. Same with Australia (NZ caught on same supply line). It will get worse as Europe and UK start firing up demand for Chinese products.

These are my thoughts anyway.

Re: Specialist Retail Jobs
 

Intrigued by the specialist jargon, I looked up "Micro Fulfilment Center" - Fulfillment house - Wikipedia

I see now why there are univesrity degrees in Retail !

Re: Specialist Retail Jobs
 

Wow. I have lived in NZ for twelve years now and had lost touch with the developments that were happening around the rest of the world.

The supermarkets here still fully stock their shop floors then send staff around to collect the orders. During the first lock-down some of those shop-floors were repurposed to focus on online deliveries keeping real customers out due to the demand but I have not seen that things have not moved on from that yet. https://www.countdown.co.nz/news-and...hopping-demand

Re: Specialist Retail Jobs
 

Thanks Clappy

"Operating 24 hours a day and seven days a week, the 8800sqm Penrose eStore will have the capability to fulfil more than 7500 online orders each week"

The Drury site coming online in 3 to 4 years will be 10,000 sqm will capacity of 700,000 orders per week. All deliveries via autonomous electric vehicles, which will also pick up all your recycling (so really 1.4 million capacity per week)

You will also stop seeing fresh produce in your Countdowns, New Worlds and Pack N Saves
Example of a grower currently receives $1.85 and supermarket retails it at $5.99. Where as in the MFC the grower will receive $3.99 the customer will pay $3.99

Re: Specialist Retail Jobs
 

I believe we have Covid to thank for that! LOL Another of those projects that would never have got off of the ground had it not been for the panic buying and lack of online shopping capacity.