Firm bags a niche in phone-holster market

By RICHARD WOOD

On the periphery of the IT industry a local web-commerce firm and leather manufacturer has carved a niche making holsters and carry bags for cellphones and mobile computers.

Nutshell Corporation is primed to ride the next wave involving the convergence of handheld PDAs and cellphones. Early examples are the Handspring Treo and Qtek 1010.

Co-owner Ian Miller said that after six years of operating its website, nutshell.cc, the Auckland firm's output had jumped to 10 units a day compared with five a year ago. Staff numbers had also doubled to 15.

He said the firm's online commerce site nutshell.cc, or alternatively tuff-as-nuts.com, turned over $230,000 last year and that is expected to grow to $350,000 this year.

"It is a 50 to 60 per cent growth and I don't see any reason for that to slow down."

Miller said the firm had been fortunate to have found a unique market opportunity "before the market knew".

"With the right governance we can make a freakin' fortune out of this. How much does it take to turn 10 into 100 a day?"

Nutshell will make a holster for any cellphone or PDA on the market and operates an 1800 number in the US.

"It comes down to customer interaction. People email me and say, have you got a holster for a this or a that?

"If it is a new device I go and research it, find out what size it is, poke it through to the factory. They say it fits in this, or it fits in that, or we have to make a holster for it."

Miller said talking to international customers on the phone also showed what was working, or not working, on the website.

The market was shifting from sophisticated early adopters towards the general consumer.

"The questions I'm being asked are more consumer-oriented rather than techie-oriented."

The holsters sell for US$39.95 ($66) each plus postage.

"We can get it anywhere around the planet in six to 10 days."

He said Nutshell had built relationships with websites in Japan, including a trial with sonystyle.co.jp.

And with Japan's love of mobile devices "it doesn't take a lot of imagination to say this thing could go like a bullet".

Creating a consumer-friendly website had been an ongoing job and Nutshell was nowhere near finished.

"It has taken a heck of a lot of time and research on my part and a lot of learning to find out exactly how best to embed ourselves in the internet and make sure we remain ahead of our competition, because it's a very competitive market out there."

Miller said he had had a major problem in getting the bank organised to accept credit card transactions in US dollars and criticised the New Zealand banking industry.

Small firms did not have available the $5000 minimum required to get a US bank account and the spare funds to spend on expensive currency lookup functionality.

The Nutshell web business was merged with the leather factory in 2001.