Long live the tip shop; an ode to the core of Kiwi innovation

Saturday, 29 November 2025

Alex Matthews is a Wellington business person in the digital production / IT / games sector, a treasure hunter at the tip shop, and an avid futurist passionate about Aotearoa’s role on the global stage.

OPINION: The tip shop is a special place that embodies many of the best elements of society; re-use, making the most of what we have, giving old things new life and purpose. There is something existentially satisfying about seeing our tools, toys and instruments living long and loved. People seem to actively enjoy being at the tip shop. It is simultaneously a playground, museum, treasure chest and social melting pot all at once. Wellington is famous for its second-hand shops and I can see why; it’s baked into our culture and possibly represents one of our most endearing qualities. I’d also like to suggest that this is a factor in our ever-emerging identity as a home of entrepreneurs, bright new businesses and products.

Innovation and technology stem from creative thinking, problem solving, and seeing opportunity where others see problems. The grass-roots of innovation thinking – and the ability to generate great ideas, products and businesses from it – I believe starts with our ability to use what is right in front of us in new ways. Whether it’s MacGyvering disparate parts together of an engine to create the world's fastest motorcycle of the time (ie, Burt Munro), experimenting with new software for the film industry (Wētā FX), or approaching the space sector with a different take on making orbital payloads more efficient (Rocket Lab), examples abound of Kiwis squeezing as much value as they can out of what’s right in front of them.

Our love of re-use is all around us and goes far beyond creative thinking, embracing second-hand and locally made things. For example the Library of Things movement that is gradually gaining traction in New Zealand – with a handful of community centres such as the Newtown Tool Library leading the way.

Wellington also enjoys some community accessible fabrication and engineering spaces – such as the FabLab at Massey which is part of a huge global network. The Maker Rooms in Wellington schools and the Maker Space at Johnsonville Library are other examples of applying re-use and sharing culture. These fabrication and tinkering spaces have a sense of excitement and possibility about them; aromas of sawdust and hot glue, full of the latest 3D printers, CRC routers, laser cutters and other cool fabrication technology. But they are all dependent on us using and valuing our public amenities, giving them the financial support they deserve, taking a long-view on sustainable operations.

When we challenge the status quo we can make a huge social and environmental impact in short stretches of time. I think it is amazing in my time that we’ll see the return of kiwi birds to Wellington, as driven by the Capital Kiwi project, which includes within its innovative arsenal locally innovated traps designed by GoodNature. When my daughter grows up, I know she’ll probably take it for granted the native birds that increasingly are seen and heard in Wellington, thanks also to Zealandia. Likewise she won’t remember a time when the Wellington landfill had its hills and valleys completely coated in torn and tattered plastic bags; the pandemic of plastic that used to plague us, until we made the simple decision to swap out one bag technology for another.

This also demonstrates the pragmatic reality of real innovation; coming from a mindset that things don’t have to stay the same way they’ve always been. In just a decade or two, entire parts of our city we took for granted can be re-imagined, upgraded, given new life. Just like the tip shop, I’m seeing this happen on a wider scale in our urban centre and really believe that despite the ups and downs, Wellington is coming out of its slump, and is going to keep emerging internationally as a heavy hitter for thriving businesses, creating new jobs and helping the city grow along the way.

Key to this working will be us backing ourselves and being willing to support – and fund – our own bright minds, rather than letting them flee for better prospects offshore, all the while importing expensive solutions from overseas that long term may not be better, cheaper, or aligned with our goals as a society. We live in a time where it’s easier than ever to order mass produced goods online, being delivered from a world away, for things that we could often source locally at a fraction of the carbon, energy, and financial cost. Just like we have the opportunity to source things we need locally, we also have the opportunity to lean into locally manufactured products, SaaS platforms and open source technology solutions.

Maybe the tip shop in its current form is a blueprint for the future. I can imagine a time where the tip shop is a sizeable compound – like an earthy shopping mall full of useful things but devoid of corporate branding or marketing. I can imagine our community centres getting ever stronger, building out more libraries of things, our second-hand stores continuing to thrive as a staple of our urban retail experience. I think it’s viable that in the future local manufacturing of even complex goods may become even more feasible than ever, with advances in 3D printing and material sciences, all accessible via a local maker space. These developments in technology, combined with a culture of re-use and social accessibility, could converge into a distinctly new form of innovation.

These changes may sound utopian; but then again many things do until all of a sudden, we take them for granted and can’t imagine a recent past without them.