Whilst the Hire Things website enables things for hire to be listed in any country, our current focus is clearly on building up the business here in New Zealand. But HireThings.com from the outset has aspired to become an exciting and useful service and community in many offshore markets outside NZ.
Australia is a strong candidate for establishing the the Hire Things service next. So to get a better idea of what’s happening in that market, Iona and Peter, along with a number of NZ hire companies and representatives from the Hire Industry Association of NZ, popped across the ditch last week for the Australian Hire and Rental Industry Association (HRIA) annual conference and trade show.
The conference was in Broadbeach on the Gold Coast in Queensland, and was a great opportunity for us to meet up with hire companies, equipment suppliers, rental software companies, the HRIA, and even some businesses starting to operate in the same or similar space as Hire Things.
We have not launched our www.hirethings.com.au site yet, as we understand that there is much more to building up the service than just releasing a website. We are seeking partnerships and investors (in NZ and Australia) to be part of this push.
So our main focus and the conference was not to “sell” Hire Things to hire companies, or get them to list their stock on the website (though they are most welcome to do so). Our main focus was to observe, to listen, and engage with the various stakeholders in the industry over there.
And we sure did that!! The conference was a fantastic balance of conference and socializing, of learnings and fun, of demonstrations and networking. Over the 4 days of the conference Iona & I managed to meet dozens of really great people all working together to deliver hire and rental services throughout Australia.
There were over 220 stands in the trade show, and about 50 companies with equipment at their “Equipment in Action” day outside. Most of the stands were by companies that supply equipment, services, technology, systems, and other services to the hire and rental companies. Last September we exhibited HireThings.co.nz at the HIANZ ’07 trade show and conference (see blog post), so it was interesting to be there simply as a delegate attendee this year, alonside all the hire companies wandering around.
Anyway, we saw lots, we learned lots, we li
stened and talked over ideas with people, had a load of fun, and made lots of new friends and allies. We have come back with plenty of insights and opportunities for HireThings.com in Australia. If you want to know more about this, drop me an email 🙂
Thank you to Creative HQ (the Grow Wellington business incubator), and to Air New Zealand for their support with this market research trip.
I’ve put a good selection of photos on Flickr at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26648044@N05/sets/72157605114132294/detail/
Hire Things - things for hire! 