Shop till you drop

Shopaholic? Then you'd love a job spending other people's money. ANGELA McCARTHY reports.

The party planner

A masquerade ball for a 40-year-old, corporate launches, company cocktail and Christmas parties - the list of dos Malcolm Jordan has had a hand in is endless.

But he's no party animal. Jordan is behind the scenes running the show, spending other people's money and getting paid to do it.

Setting up parties is fun - but it is also hard work, says Jordan, owner of The Total Event, a one-stop-shop event service based in Mt Eden.

To get into the field, Jordan, who has a diploma in design, worked free for a year building up his portfolio, doing everything from interior decorating to window dressing. Sixteen years on, he's master of his own destiny - and other people's parties.

Jordan works with budgets ranging from $100 to $750 per head: "The biggest number of people we've catered for is 3000."

And the themes are varied: a Monte Carlo-style gaming room for a millionaire's party, a Maori meeting house for an Australian client wanting 15 parties in six days; a tropical island setting with two-storey high dinosaurs.

Creating events provides ample opportunity for Jordan to exercise his creativity.

The plant buyer

As a plant sourcer, Roger Milne spends millions of dollars each year buying plants for landscaping environments as diverse as private homes, hospitals, golf courses and shopping centres.

"We provide a complete plant supply service, sourcing plants specified in briefs by landscape designers and architects, then delivering them to the planting site," explains Milne, who set up Glen Innes' Milnes Plant Link in 1989 to fill a gap he identified while working as a landscape contractor.

He loves the challenge of hunting down a variety of plants across the country, particularly when he has to source huge volumes.

"For example, Ascot Hospital [in Auckland] required 11,500 New Zealand broadleaf, which I sourced from about a dozen different places. Another job required a quarter of a million plants."

An unexpected bonus of the job is the variety of people with whom he comes into contact: from nursery gardeners, greenkeepers, and landscape designers to truckies.

"We're in contact with nurseries from one end of the country to the other. It is not unusual for me to park my ute outside my home in the evening and find it full of plants dropped off in the dead of night by a delivery truck from the other end of the island."

The gift buyer

Christmas is hell for Send a Box by Country Flowers owner Christina Woodworth, who takes half her annual turnover in the two weeks before December 25.

Even so, she gains great pleasure from sending gifts on behalf of others.

A florist by trade, Woodworth bought the west Auckland florist and gift box business in 1997, then expanded its range.

"It is fun and I feel privileged to be instrumental in passing on people's sentiments."

Gift boxes start at $20 and go up to $500. The boxes have themes such as Kiwi Bloke (beers, nuts, chips etc in a wooden crate) or Tranquil Moments (scented candle, body buff, posy etc). Goods include champagne and gourmet foods to baby booties, coffee mugs and aromatherapy oils.

While Woodworth spends a lot of time sourcing New Zealand goods, her list also includes overseas items, such as French-made teddy bears and Belgium liver pate.

"I ferret out little businesses of interest, search the internet and Yellow Pages and also rely on word of mouth."

One of the challenges is buying out-of-season. Many corporations, who are her mainstay, make Christmas gift decisions by August.

The wine buyer

Buying wine to suit the tastes of 80,000 to 90,000 people is fun and challenging, says Mike De Garis, general manager, wine buyer and wine maker for Cardmember Wines Ltd.

As the direct-mail wine club members order approximately 200,000 cases of wine each year, De Garis has a lot of wine to source. About 55 per cent is New Zealand wine; 40 per cent Australian, and mainly reds. The other five per cent comes from countries such as Italy, Spain, France and Chile.

Mike chooses much of the wine by tasting, keeping in mind known customer preferences: "For example, Marlborough sauvignon blanc is hot at the moment."

An important consideration is customer comfort zones. For example, De Garis doesn't touch overseas wines with names Australasians would have trouble pronouncing. Even so, he finds New Zealanders cosmopolitan in their wine choices.

"I think it is because the wine industry has traditionally been very small, so diverse tastes have developed."

The company also contracts winegrowers nationwide to create exclusive wines. Thus, over the vintage period, De Garis doffs his wine-making hat, travelling the country to ensure wines are made to specifications.

De Garis entered the wine industry after becoming disgruntled with economics, his first career choice. He studied at South Australia's Roseworthy Agricultural College, then spent 10 years at Tyrrells in the Hunter Valley as head wine maker, before moving to Cellarmasters, an Australian direct-mail wine club. Cardmember was set up in 1989, and Mike has run the company for the last four years.