Online electronics retailer Kogan is expanding further by partnering with a New Zealand energy company to sell power and gas around Australia before the end of the year.
The multi-year agreement will see Kogan partner with Meridian Energy, an electricity company majority owned by the New Zealand government, and its Australian retailer Powershop, who claim to be the only electricity and gas retailer certified 100% carbon neutral by the Australian government.
Kogan will handle the sales and marketing side while Powershop supply the energy and retail services.
The partnership is another step in Kogan’s ongoing evolution from discount electronics retailer to vertically integrated services provider.
While mainly known for its online store where it predominately sells grey imports and house brand appliances and electronics, by now offering energy and gas Kogan will soon be able to sell customers a loan to buy a home, products to furnish it, the power for those products, insurance to cover it all, and the internet they can use to purchase more products and services from Kogan.
As appears to be the case with all of Kogan’s offerings, the new energy brand’s success hinges on the use of “digital efficiency” to make power and gas services simpler and more affordable.
Kogan’s executive director David Shafer said the partnership will provide “low cost power and gas, and a first-class customer experience using technology that will enable customers to easily track their energy usage at any time”.
Powershop focuses on green power through small-scale community energy and renewable energy, and uses carbon certificates to fund renewables, methane capture and reforestation projects to offset carbon from the non-renewable energy it supplies.
The company owns wind farms in Victoria and South Australia and three hydro power stations in New South Wales.
