Mighty Ape buys iQToys

mighty apeMighty Ape, New Zealand’s biggest e-commerce website, has taken ownership of LeftBrain stock, best known for its website iQToys, after it went into liquidation on April 16.

LeftBrain was one of New Zealand’s first online retailers which, over a period of 19 years, built up six websites, including two in Australia, which sold over five million products.

LeftBrain’s range includes one of New Zealand’s largest online selections of books and DVDs on Gumboot.co.nz, thousands of toys on iQToys.co.nz, the latest and greatest baby gear on BabyUniverse.co.nz, gadgets and gizmos on IwantThat.co.nz, and an interesting variety of toys and treats for pets at PetSpot.co.nz. It also runs Beauty 360.

Its liquidation last month wreaked havoc, with 800 to 1000 unfulfilled customers and many unpaid suppliers.

Mighty Ape’s marketing guru, Dylan Bland, said the company is currently painstakingly following through on LeftBrain’s unfulfilled order list.

It also plans to open all LeftBrain websites for a month to sell remaining stock and “see how they work and how they go”.

“Our feeling is we’d obviously love to keep iQToys and BabyUniverse going if we can get them up and running to a point where that makes sense for us,” explained Bland.

“If we can’t then we will look to move those customers over to Mighty Ape.”

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