May 28
Liz Bigwood at Kerikeri’s Stone Store.
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Stone Store nominated for retail award
The New Zealand Retail Association has nominated the Stone Store as a finalist in the Best Provincial Retailer category of the 2018 Retail Hotlist awards.
The Association praised the way the Stone Store shop “balances its role as a living museum with a successful and beautifully merchandised retail operation”.
Manager of the Stone Store, Liz Bigwood, is delighted with the nomination, which she says is a tremendous honor in itself.
“The Stone Store began as a trading post in 1836, and has been in business in one form or another pretty well since then,” she says.
Trade of iron tools and implements, cloth, and basic foodstuffs like flour, tea, and sugar were stock in trade with local Maori and it was primarily this trade and the attraction of shipping into the Eastern Bay of Islands that Hongi Hika and other Ngapuhi leaders intended when they allowed a missionary settlement here.
“In later years, people used to say of the store that you could buy anything from a needle to an anchor, and we continue that tradition by stocking a wide range of goods, including authentic items similar to those that would have been on sale in the 19thCentury.”
A recent example includes wooden butter molds, similar to those available in New Zealand over a century ago, that are still manufactured in Germany. The Stone Store also stocks a range of quality New Zealand merchandise.
“It takes time to source these products, and it’s important that they fit well with our market and the heritage values of this place,” says Liz.
“The nomination acknowledges the special nature of the Stone Store as a unique retail operation, and the team that makes it so special.”
The awards take place on June 6.