Online wine: La Vinotheque

John Nixon and Dominique Annonier rely on a New Zealand company to store vital data for their shops in New Caledonia. Photo / Supplied

Broadband, as hundreds of thousands of New Zealand users already know, provides fast access to the internet and email.

But how about using it to keep tabs on a business on a smallish island in the Pacific Ocean? The real question might be, if you run a string of wine shops in Noumea, as does Dominique Annonier, why would you ever want to leave your New Caledonian paradise?

Let's say you do so just because you can. And because, with dual French and Australian citizenship, you like an occasional change of scenery.

Apart from the mobility broadband provides Annonier, it also gives her 12-year-old business, La Vinotheque, security. Using a satellite internet link between New Caledonia and New Zealand, sales records from her three wine shops are fully backed up to a data centre in Auckland.

That data is valuable. Like France, New Caledonia does not permit alcohol advertising on radio or TV, and in other media it is restricted to descriptions of product characteristics. That leaves direct marketing as about the only way of promoting La Vinotheque's range of wines and beers.

John Nixon, Dominique's father, La Vinotheque shareholder and IT adviser, says when they took over the ailing business, they started with a mailing list of about 300 names.

A dozen years later, with the incentive of a loyalty scheme, about 10,000 customers are on the database and the firm turns over the equivalent of millions of dollars. The loyalty scheme requires real-time exchange of sales records, and database security is assured by maintaining a copy in Auckland.

That wouldn't be possible without broadband, says Matt Comb, managing director of Auckland company Fern New Zealand, which provides La Vinotheque's point of sale software, and holds its data. His company also has a customer in the US running a business in Australia.

All Fern New Zealand's customers receive around-the-clock support via Skype, and free a software tool, TeamViewer, lets Comb and staff remotely control customer computers via the internet. "Five years ago I would have had to go to Noumea to set up a new machine for La Vinotheque."

His only regret is that it removes any excuse he might have had to visit New Caledonia.