YouShop | part one

My job requires me to spend a lot of time online... sourcing unique products for my own home, my Bibby + Brady interior clients, my Cush & Nooks online shop, and for interior inspiration. New Zealand is a tiny country, fairly isolated from the rest of the world, but the world wide web has opened up a whole new world for us. The world is at our fingertips.

We have a lot of fantastic local products here in New Zealand, but I love having the opportunity to buy from further afield. A lot of companies are happy to ship internationally, but there are still many occasions when I discover the perfect piece only to find that they won't ship it to New Zealand. Luckily for me NZ Post has come to my rescue!

They have created YouShop, a service that is free to join up to, and provides you with an address in the US and in the UK to have your shopping delivered to. Your parcel will be delivered to the YouShop warehouse, and once received you will be contacted for your nominated address in New Zealand, and payment for international delivery. You can get an idea of the cost of your shipping on the NZ Post website here.

I was so excited when I learnt of this fabulous service, and knew it would invaluable to me. There are a lot of things I'll use it for - I often come across beautiful European products that I can now have shipped to the UK, and then to NZ. But I knew the first thing I wanted was something from Kate Spade...

I love Kate Spade - the high quality of their products, their incredible branding, and their effortless style has won me over, but they don't ship outside of America. You can find her products elsewhere, but not the full range. For my first YouShop experience I have started small (you know what they say about small packages!). I'd been looking for a stylish way to store my business cards, and the 2 Park Avenue Small Bella Pouch was the perfect solution. It's on it's way to my US YouShop address as we speak, next stop New Zealand.

I'll let you know when Bella arrives, and give you my thoughts on the process in part two of this story. But don't feel you have to wait for me, why don't you go out and try for yourself.