Local deals site FirstIn.co.nz was New Zealand's first daily deals site back in 2006. The one-deal-a-day concept was new to New Zealand back then, and the idea didn't catch on initially. It took Torpedo7 to launch their 1day site in 2008, for daily deals fever to hit the kiwi mainstream.
But unfortunately, the site that had been the first to launch, was overshadowed by 1day's rapid growth. 1day went for a mass market approach selling anything and everything which appealed to all the family. FirstIn was more in the technology space, and stuck to what they knew well. Still, it must have been frustrating seeing the concept you started, be taken over by another company.
While 1day was taking over kiwi hearts, minds and wallets, FirstIn continued to trade and grow. Their expertise in the technology and gadgets area kept their hardcore followers happy and all was good.
Then came the vouchers craze in 2010 with GrabOne taking the lead, and growing discount vouchers to a massive business. A year or so after Grabone launched, they wanted started to branch out into selling products too. The thing was that GrabOne didn't want to be warehousing and fulfilling orders, so they looked to find a "products" partner. They ended up doing a deal with FirstIn in June 2011 who already had their own deals site at FirstIn.co.nz
The partnership would see GrabOne sell products deals through GrabOneStore, but provided by FirstIn. Through the GrabOneStore they have grown their wholesale business from zero to 11m in 2012. Luckily for FirstIn, each deal page on GrabOne mentioned them as the provider of the deal. With thousands of deals sold and fulfilled by FirstIn, they became well known, very fast.
By more customers having experience of FirstIn shipping their orders, sales through FirstIn's own website grew from 2 million to over 7 million in sales in the past 2 years, largely in part to the GrabOne partnership. The partnership was the best of both worlds - more product sold at wholesale, and their own retail site growing rapidly.
So you can check out GrabOneStore.co.nz to see General products supplied by FirstIn, or for technology deals not suited to GrabOne, check out their own site FirstIn.co.nz.