Greenbeans Closing Down

While some of you might know this already from Facebook a week ago, this contains more info & is also for those who is not yet privy to the Closing Down message.

Yes – you did read the title right………..

breath – please don’t panic – grab a coffee and read this newsletter and digest it for a couple of hours before acting.

Don’t – overreact and order like crazy and end up putting in 5 orders every hour or so. Also don’t procrastinate for weeks and hope things get cheaper still- we don’t have time, nor do you. You do have a couple of hours to think things through and put together a single plan of your stocking up order.

Do email us (reply to this email) or call us asking us questions if anything isn’t clear to you for your circumstances before you put in your order.

Yes - we are closing down. However that process will take a couple of years still. We will not be buying in any more stocks than what we already have in NZ or AU, so once we sell out of all stocks from both warehouses, we are out of stock - but will continue on with all remaining stocks that we have until all of that is sold over the next couple of years.

Why

Due to divorce and reusable cloth nappy making falling off the edge of the earth around August 2021.

While personal, Divorce has its part to play and trying to suggest otherwise would leave most of you questioning why we are going about things the way we are. The Divorce element is dictating the process, that is the sale of the Australian property to divide that up and that is forcing unsold stock in AU to relocate to NZ.

At the heart of the issue is the decline of the Reusable Washable Cloth Nappy market/industry. Cloth nappies have been on the decline since the peak of 2013 – but we didn’t see it falling off the edge of the world like it did in August 2021.

At Greenbeans we have had a front row seat to the problem – that is substandard PUL used in Cloth Nappy production & too thick Bamboo inserts. It has had many try cloth nappies, only to find they leak in 6 months and get discard and 10 friends being told not to try because they are a waste – likewise Bamboo going moldy as they exceeded 720gsm combined layers in NZ & 800gsm combined layers in AU and was no way they would ever dry to avoid mold development and growth – and like PUL, discarded in less than 6 months because of mold growth and nothing that can be done to reverse or correct that.

Yes – we do other things like Zelfast & Zelor – and they have kept the bills paid the past couple of years, but they don’t alone sustain a business and we would have to have found other products to make a sustainable business. The preference is to shut it all down and move onto something new – whatever that transpires to be over the next couple of years – as the wind up was always going to be a slow drawn out one.

Zelor For Sale

We would like and hope that someone with an existing business would approach us to take over the Zelor brand from us. It isn’t a business that would add value for someone to operate as a standalone business, but for someone with an existing craft physical or online type store, adding Zelor to your business would add significant value.

Tackling the big hurdle in anyone approaching us about Zelor – Zelor is a business that requires around a $50k investment. No, we are not selling Zelor for $50k, we are seeking just to be paid for the value of the stock we still have left come when we hand it over to someone to take on, but at this point the amount of that stock is going to be very minimal and the new owner would have to purchase in more replacement stock to a value of around $50k total and cannot see it operated sustainably any other way.

Zelor has around $100k of sales annually/$2,000 weekly – and whoever takes it over will recover their initial investment within the first 12 months and do very well – not only to mention make all the Zelor users very happy to have ongoing supply of product.

If you are interested in Zelor, the better option is to call Hamish on 04 2387 1067 to discuss it further.

Closing Down – what is happening?

The short, in 3 weeks time – around 15 October, Greenbeans will case distribution operations within Australia – give or take 7 days. .

With Divorce, the property we have the bulk of our stock at in Australia, needs to be sold for that to be divided - and it is not commercially viable to relocate to another property in Australia to retain distribution in Australia.

What stock that is not sold by the October date, will be packed up into shipping container(s) and shipped to New Zealand, and we will sell and ship back to Australia on a monthly basis (exc June & December) as we sell down what stock we still have on hand.

The first shipment back to Australia from New Zealand will be February/March 2025 - so as a minimum people should be stocking up now to last themselves through until the end of March 2025.

We will be doing bulk supply, but the first of that isn’t going to land into Australia until July 2026 – so if you are a big/bulk customer – you need to be stocking yourself up now to last yourself until July 2026.

If you simply just like a bargain, the 50-70% off products down with shipping 30% below what it actually costs us as we have not passed on shipping increases the past 3 years – it isn’t going to be this cheap. From NZ, nothing will be cheap/discounted shipping nor will we be discounting the price on product. If you want it cheap/discounted – it is now or never.

Monthly Shipments From New Zealand in 2025

Off the top, the first thing to point out is with orders being filled from New Zealand in 2025 – if we out of stock of a product in Australia, you will have access to NZ’s quota of that same product come the first shipment January/February and should be looking with eagerness to stock up from NZ if you miss out of AU stocks.

The process with NZ shipments will not be to dissimilar other than it is a once a month process and will add another week or so onto the time frame. We will be packaging up your orders like normal and packing them onto pallets in New Zealand – then once a month we will send the pallets of orders to ship over to Australia by sea, which is a 3 day trip from NZ, and upon landing into Australia and doing customs clearance, the pallets of orders will be delivered directly to Australia Post to be feed into their system and shipped out to you as normal. You can of course make contact and get us to ship directly with Fedex and the like urgent orders, but they will cost a bit more to ship.

Products to buy Now!

$1 per meter Microfleece - is our #1 priority to sell. At $1 per meter, it is cheap and if everyone grabbed 20-40 meters for $20-40 we would be out of it within a week – and we would appreciate that. It is also going to be that expensive to ship to NZ and then back, that having people stock up now – be it for your needs or resell in the future for a profit.

$14.40 per kg Bamboo Bails - is our #2 priority to sell. $14.40 per kg for 16-20kg bails of Bamboo is below our cost and a bargain that you can only make money on. That is $260 for an 18kg bail. We also have bails listed for 250gsm Bamboo/Hemp in both Fleece & French Terry. We hope people stock up on it now in bail form, and then if they need to in the future sell it for their own gain, but we know most will eventually use it and be happy they stocked up on a bail now at this price while they could.

60% off Kam Snaps - $2 per packet - while not a priority, we do have a lot of snaps in a number of colours and we know how much of a pain it is to add each colour to the cart. Hence we have made a listing for 80 colours - 1 of every colour that we still have in stock for $161.80. A single click of add to cart, and you are ordering a huge bunch of snaps to keep you stocked up. Yes our normal full range is 90 colours, but there are 10 colours we have already out of stocked on in the past week, so the listing has been reduced down to 80 colours of what we have left - and the listing will probably be edited down to 70-75 in another week once we out of stock of a few more - B22 Ivory is at the top of that list of colours we expect to sell out shortly.

Low Stock – Stock up NOW!

Zelor Rivets - have rapidly been purchased up over the past week, and our stocks are low. 8mm have been fairly sold out of with just 3 colours left – but we have plenty of 9mm & 7mm left if you wanted to stock up yourself. We have updated our listings and will try to maintain them that the products that have a default “1”qty to order on them are ones we actually have stock of – and have counted and updated all our listings of the current stock we have left.

Greenbeans PUL - we expect to be sold out of PUL within the next week – in White, we only have a handful of 5mts pieces and we will rapidly be moving down the measurements until we are sold out of all, and colours will be the same. We do have a 100mts roll of Navy Blue for sale that you might need to contact us to sort out shipping prices on that to you. In colours, we have the most in Lime Green, so if you are not to fussed on the colour of PUL, going hard in buying up on Lime Green will be doing everyone a favour. New Zealand is also very low on PUL, so expecting to get your needs meet from NZ to last you until July 2026 is wishful thinking and you need to be stocking up today with what we have available in Australia to see you through until July 2026 and order your 40mts rolls February 2026 for July delivery. We have today gone through and updated our website of exact inventory as we have on our shelf, you just need to order it before someone else does.