Out of the shed and back to the farm

Glen Inger has resigned from the Warehouse board. Picture / Kenny Rodger

The Warehouse as we know it might never have existed if Glen Inger had not been offered a 2 per cent pay rise.

That meagre offer - after a "fantastic" year for his then employer, Woolworths - prompted Inger and his boss, Gerard Peterson, to reconsider their lives as wage-slaves.

"I said to him, well, that's fine, but my wife's earning a lot more than me. I'm going to have to find something else. He shut the door and said: 'Why don't we both go?' "

It was 1987. Inger was 25, Peterson 34. Back then Stephen Tindall was a small-time trader running a few stores where goods overflowed from trestle tables on to the floor.

He was interested enough in their frontline retail experience to agree to a meeting at the North Shore's Poenamo Village Hotel. He listened to their pitch, a simple list of the things the pair believed were wrong with his business.

It was enough to convince him they were worth doing business with, but it didn't solve the Inger family's pay imbalance.

"Stephen said, okay, come on board - but don't think I can afford to pay you," Inger said.

Now, 17 years later, Inger is leaving under very different circumstances. When The Warehouse announced his resignation in late February, it was from the board of one of the country's largest companies and from the role of chief executive of the discount chain's Red Sheds. He and his wife appeared in last year's NBR Rich List worth an estimated $32 million.

Freed from the need to earn that pay cheque, Inger's plans now centre on the area in which he was born and bred, Wellsford. "It's back to the roots," he said

He leaves a company which has gone from trestle tables and hand-to-mouth cashflow to annual sales of more than $2.2 billion and a market capitalisation of more than $1.2 billion. But it is when he's talking about the early days that Inger lights up.

For the first few months, it was hard graft. He would often be found unloading containers into the early hours of the morning. He and Peterson put together to buy a second-hand old truck and other equipment for The Warehouse.

It was hard work, but fun. The team had an award for "dog of the year", the worst, most unsaleable product purchased for sale in the past 12 months. Inger won once, buying a container load of scissors that did not cut. Tindall's award winner - a large shipment of lawnmowers - was worse.

Why? The lawnmowers, from the US, were manufactured to cut American lawns, which Americans like to grow tall. They skimmed neatly across New Zealand grass, without slicing a single blade.

Though the official version of the company's history is largely a tale of Tindall, for whom Inger professes "huge respect", Inger's own part in building the business was substantial.

He was responsible for the store layout, replacing tables with racks, and knocking up the early editions of those dump bins at the end of the aisle by hand, slapping a stencil on them to look like a shipping mark.

Inger also came up with those yellow stripes on The Warehouse logo (with the help of a signwriter), brought in a backdoor-security system, store-operating systems and checkout procedures.

Some of those basics proved crucial in the race against other retailers emerging at the time, who failed to keep up with The Warehouse's fast pace of store openings. But perhaps the competition had less dedication to the cause.

"Other retailers around laughed at us," he said.

"They thought we would burn ourselves out ... you'd see their fancy Mercedes turn up at their office - we took very little money out of the business.

"For many years, I drove a beat-up Toyota Hiace and did 50,000km a year setting up stores."

Cargo King, The Importer, The Important Store: all were eventually cast into the shadow of the Red Sheds.

"The difference was we were very aware cashflow was important.

"We did everything on the cheap and we put everything in place with longevity in mind."

For many, Inger's in-store achievement might pale in comparison with the role he has played as architect of the Wal-Martisation of New Zealand.

Small-town New Zealand has changed irreversibly as a result of The Warehouse's seemingly unstoppable roll-out through the country. There are now 85 Red Sheds and 43 Blue Sheds nationally.

A small-town boy himself, Inger has no regrets over the change he has wrought. Far from it - he is fiercely proud of what he has done.

Growing up, Inger remembers a mother and father who worked hard, taught respect for others, but lived what was basically a "subsistence existence".

Large rural stores such as McKenzies, Woolworths Variety and Farmers were the lifeblood of the kind of town he grew up in but in the 1970s and 1980s they pulled out.

It was a big deal for the Ingers to pile their family of seven into the car to get to Auckland.

"All those services started disappearing out of rural New Zealand and I saw what that did," said Inger.

The Warehouse keeps its city and country prices the same, despite freight costs.

The company also has one crucial difference to Wal-Mart: it does not go where it is not wanted.

Inger is not trying to build an illusion that small town retailers welcome its presence, he just sees that small town customers want it.

Back in Wellsford, the Ingers employ 34 people through several operations in the district: they have two dairy farms, milking a total of 1500 cows, and a beef farm with 1500 animals. They have 1100 acres of pruned clearwood and a sawmill, predominantly producing tanalised fencing and timber for outdoors. While Inger's resignation will allow him to become more involved in planning and strategy, he has no plans to replace his managers.

Apart from spending more time with family, he wants to encourage others emerging in business.

He is taking a team to Fiji to look at helping to improve its agricultural industry in the face of waning sugar cane production. Manufacturing is a possible interest.

"I've got a number of things in the fire, some offshore in primary production," Inger said.

Pressed on whether he would ever go back to a public company, Inger could not see it happening - at this point. If it did, it would certainly not be in competition with The Warehouse.

"I would have more fun and be more productive growing small businesses," Inger said, putting his success down to determination.

"Retail is alive, retail is everyday.

"A bargain is what a rich person wants and a poor person needs."

PETER GLEN INGER

* Aged 41; one of five children.

* Brought up in Port Albert, Wellsford.

* Educated at Wellsford Primary and Rodney College. Left school after sixth form with University Entrance.

* Has been with The Warehouse for more than 17 years. Jobs have included national roles in buying, operations and property.

* Before that he worked for Woolworths when it was owned by LD Nathan. He rose from a management trainee to divisional manager for general merchandise in seven years.

* Married to Joanne for 20 years in April. They have four children ranging in age from nine to 15.