About Us
The year was 2003, during a holiday trip to the Australian city of Sydney. Tasmanian entrepreneurs Peter & Anne-Maree Harback discovered a small retail stall in a busy shopping centre that were promoting a tiny micro remote controlled car.
Recognising the coolness in the gadget, a sample quantity order was taken back to their home state of Tasmania to test. The micro racer remote controlled cars were well received and CoolThings.com.au was born.
After trialling several different brands of the micro remote controlled cars that were on the market at the time, testing both for quality and customer satisfaction, a well known quality brand was chosen and an order of 1008 of the units were manufactured and shipped from our partners in China.
Since that time founder Peter & Anne-Maree have grown CoolThings.com.au into a business encompassing a retail outlet located in Launceston, Tasmania and an online shopping website that promotes a wide range of cool gadgets, gifts, toys and games.
The main goals for the online shopping site in their own words are:
"We're not just another gadget shopping website; we're striving to put an outstanding personal touch into online shopping.
Our understanding and experience of online shopping is that sometimes it can be a little impersonal, that's why we personalise all communications that we send to our customers. With CoolThings.com.au you'll know the name of the person who is personally organising your order for you.
We send multi-confirmation emails when orders are placed to let you know what stage your order is at and if there are any problems regarding your order we work fast to sort them out.
Peace of Mind is very important to us when online shopping. Our unique Peace of Mind guarantee is that if you're not totally satisfied with your purchase then you can return it for a full refund.
We're always moving forward, and are constantly changing our website when we receive suggestions and comments from our customers."
Where we are located
Our Tasmanian warehouse base of operations in the city of Launceston serves as headquarters for all online order processing, retail and website management.
Our Team
Jonathon & Sarah - Our Product Testers
Jonathon & Sarah make sure only the coolest products get through by performing extensive tests on everything that you find at CoolThings Australia. They are also involved in creating all the product videos you see on the CoolThings site. And when its really busy, its all hands on deck and they pitch in with whatever needs doing.
Natasha, Bronte, Ava and Jess - Our Cool Dispatch and Order Wonder women
Our awesome Dispatch and order team lovingly pack your purchase and gently prepare all items for delivery. The team also double checks your order and confirms whether it is being sent directly to you or whether you are sending the purchase to someone as a gift. If it is a gift being sent directly to the gift recipient they ensure that no receipt or transaction details are included with the items.
Danielle - Warehouse legend
Danielle uses her organisational superpowers to receive our stock, and make sure its all put away where we can find it ready for your orders. Our warehouse has never been so tidy!
Peter Harback - Founder
Peter focuses on finding new and innovative ways to serve Coolthings customers. As CoolThings main product buyer Peter's main goal is to Listen, Listen and Listen when it comes to customer feedback and product suggestions.
Anne-Maree Harback - Founder
Anne-Maree plays a strategic role in the growth of Coolthings.com.au and brings stability to the table when looking at new business opportunities for the overall growth of the business. Basically she prevents the very, very crazy ideas of Peter's and only lets the slightly crazy ones through. Day to day she you'll see her helping out in answering customer queries, and packing orders.