On Monday First Up spoke to the creator of the NZ Made Facebook page, Sarah Colcord, the page has over 450,000 followers.
Two small businesses who posted on the page say they have had a surge in orders.
Tom Hill founded Oka Pottery in Tauranga, oka is Japanese for hill and his designs combine inspiration from New Zealand and his travels to Japan.
Tom is a batch potter, making small quantities of his designs and shipping them across the world.
Lockdown, he says, hasn’t been too different for him as he works in his studio alone, but posting on the NZ Made Facebook page led to a huge influx of new orders.
“I can’t believe the amount of love that comes off that page. I guess I expected to gain a few followers, to attract a few people that may not have seen my work before.
“But I had no idea that that many people would be so kind about it and want to follow me. I’ve had a lot of emails of people wanting to purchase my work which is really, really nice and I’m just trying to sift through them all at the moment really.”
Since Thursday the post has generated over 2000 emails, he says.
Lisa Nicole Moes is an illustrator based in Wanaka she designs and makes beautiful original travel posters of New Zealand’s most beloved spots.
She says while personally the lockdown was quite relaxing, from a business sense, things slowed right down.
“Obviously I had no sales over the lockdown, which was a bit of a worry because usually my main market is international tourists.”
A friend suggested she post on the page, she says.
“I was very overwhelmed with how kind people were and all the comments and all the sales.”
Fulfilling orders, however, has been tricky., Nicole says.
“I’m lucky enough to have my own fine art printer so I print them all myself, but I’ve had a bit of trouble getting packaging supplies.”
The demand for her posters has been unprecedented, she says.
“I’ve never sold so many pieces of artwork, I actually cannot keep up, I need to employ my housemate to help me package them all.”
Here's the work of Tom Hill from OKA pottery and Lisa Nicole Moes
OKA pottery, Tauranga Photo: RNZ/ Tom Hill
Tom Hill from OKA Pottery Tauranga Photo: RNZ/ Tom Hill
Kaikoura poster/ Lisa Nicole Moes Photo: RNZ/ Lisa Nicole Moes
Lisa Nicole Moes Photo: RNZ/ Lisa Nicole Moes
