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From Slopes to Shipping: What Our Team Retreat Taught Us About Supporting Small Businesses

2025-08-07


From Slopes to Shipping:

What Our Team Retreat Taught Us About Supporting Small Businesses


When we planned our team retreat this year, we didn’t book a hotel conference room or organize ice-breaker games.

Instead, we packed our jackets and headed to the snowy slopes of Christchurch.

For many of us, it was our first time on skis. Others challenged themselves on more advanced trails — pushing physical limits, slipping (a lot), and coming back with sore legs and bigger smiles. Somewhere between the slopes and the hot pools, over meals and late-night tea, our conversations kept circling back to one thing:

Our customers.


Why a ski trip?

At iShipping, we believe real teamwork isn’t built in meetings — it’s built over time, through shared effort, trust, and sometimes a few tumbles down a snowy hill.

Stepping away from day-to-day operations gives us room to breathe and reflect. As a fast-moving logistics platform, it’s easy to get caught up in system upgrades, pricing models, and parcel counts. But this trip reminded us that behind every label and delivery is something more important:

the people we serve.

We talked about seeing order notifications come in at 1 a.m.

We talked about the seller who started with two parcels a week — and now ships over 200 in a single night.

We talked about the gratitude in a message from a client who said, “I wouldn’t have made it through the season without your team.”

These stories weren’t part of a company presentation.They came up naturally — because they matter to us.


Our customers aren’t just clients — they’re builders

Most iShipping users are small and medium-sized eCommerce sellers. Many run their stores solo or with family, while juggling full-time jobs, kids, and late-night packing sessions.They’re not backed by venture capital. They build their brands one order at a time — learning platforms, testing products, managing returns, replying to messages after dinner.

We see their effort, and we’re proud to be the logistics partner that helps them grow quietly and reliably in the background.


More than a logistics tool — we’re in this together

This past year, we improved our dashboard, launched new features, and expanded partnerships. But what drives us isn’t just metrics or margins — it’s watching our customers succeed.Even on a mountain retreat, we couldn’t stop talking about the people building something real. Because we’re not just moving parcels.

We’re moving with the people behind each one — the dreamers, doers, and late-night packers making New Zealand’s eCommerce thrive.


Final thoughts

A few of us came back from the retreat with sore legs. All of us came back with renewed focus.

2025 is a big year for iShipping. And as our customers keep growing, we’ll keep building the platform that grows with them — one shipment, one solution, and one conversation at a time.