Claude for retail and wholesale
Independent retailers and wholesalers wear every hat: buyer, marketer, customer service and bookkeeper.
- Share of NZ employees
- 14%about 351,000 people, Feb 2025
- Highest local share
- 32%Woodend, Canterbury
- Highest region
- 17%Auckland, 143,000 employees
Where we start
Independent retailers and wholesalers wear every hat: buyer, marketer, customer service and bookkeeper. Claude helps most with writing and with making sense of supplier paperwork.
Product copy at scale
Write product descriptions in your shop’s voice from supplier spec sheets, with a Project holding your style guide and banned claims.
Supplier terms and price lists
Compare supplier agreements or price files and flag changes in margins, minimum orders or return terms.
Customer replies
Draft consistent, polite replies to complaints and returns that reflect the Consumer Guarantees Act and your own policy.
Take care: Check product claims such as health, origin or environmental benefits before publishing. The Fair Trading Act still applies to AI-written copy.
Where the jobs are
Retail and wholesale accounts for 14% of paid employees in New Zealand. These are the towns and regions where its share is highest. Towns need at least 400 employees to be ranked.
Towns with the highest share of jobs in retail
| Town | Chart | Share | NZ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Woodend | 31.5% | 14.3% | |
| Amberley | 29.0% | 14.3% | |
| Ōhakune | 29.0% | 14.3% | |
| Waiuku | 28.8% | 14.3% | |
| Warkworth | 24.0% | 14.3% | |
| Cable Bay | 24.0% | 14.3% | |
| Gore | 23.7% | 14.3% | |
| Geraldine | 23.4% | 14.3% | |
| Whitianga | 23.3% | 14.3% | |
| Pukekohe | 23.0% | 14.3% |
Share of paid employees at business locations in the town. The tick marks the national share.
Source: Stats NZ, Business Demography Statistics, February 2020 and 2025.
By region
| Region | Chart | Share | NZ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auckland | 16.6% | 14.3% | |
| Canterbury | 14.9% | 14.3% | |
| Nelson | 14.8% | 14.3% | |
| Tasman | 14.7% | 14.3% | |
| Manawatū-Whanganui | 14.1% | 14.3% | |
| Northland | 14.0% | 14.3% | |
| Bay of Plenty | 13.6% | 14.3% | |
| Waikato | 13.2% | 14.3% | |
| Otago | 13.2% | 14.3% | |
| Southland | 13.2% | 14.3% | |
| Hawke's Bay | 13.0% | 14.3% | |
| Marlborough | 12.0% | 14.3% | |
| West Coast | 12.0% | 14.3% | |
| Taranaki | 11.6% | 14.3% | |
| Gisborne | 10.5% | 14.3% | |
| Wellington | 10.3% | 14.3% |
Source: Stats NZ, Business Demography Statistics, February 2020 and 2025.
Courses
1Introductory
Claude foundations workshop
A hands-on start for everyone on the team: good prompts, Projects, files and artifacts, using your own work as the examples.
2Organisation
Claude team rollout
Moving from a few enthusiasts to a whole team: plan choice, Projects structure, usage guidelines, connectors and champions.
3Advanced
Claude Code and MCP for developers
For developers and technical teams: agentic coding with Claude Code, project memory, building MCP servers and the Claude API.
Other industries
Questions
Is Claude safe to use in retail?
With the right plan and rules, yes for most tasks. Check product claims such as health, origin or environmental benefits before publishing. The Fair Trading Act still applies to AI-written copy.
Can training use our own retail examples?
Yes. We ask for a few real, non-sensitive examples beforehand, or anonymised versions, and build the exercises around them.
Train your retail team
- You tell us about the teamSize, where you are, the documents people work with, and what you would like to change.
- We suggest a course and formatBy email, with a few questions about the tasks and documents you want to train on.
- People practise on real workOn-site or remote. Everyone leaves with Claude set up for tasks they do every week.
- In person
- Remote
- Half-day workshop
- Full-day workshop
- Team rollout
Independent training by TheColab. Not affiliated with Anthropic.
Enquire
Tell us about your team. We reply by email with a suggested course and format.