Prime Minister Christopher Luxon tours Mainfreight Tauranga following the announcement of Ikea's distribution partnership with Mainfreight and NZ Post. Photo / Bijou Johnson
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon tours Mainfreight Tauranga following the announcement of Ikea's distribution partnership with Mainfreight and NZ Post. Photo / Bijou Johnson
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says Ikea’s entry to the New Zealand market will be good for local businesses.
Luxon visited Tauranga’s Mainfreight branch today following Ikea’s recently announced distribution partnership with Mainfreight and NZ Post.
Ikea’s first New Zealand store, located at Sylvia Park, will open on December 4.
Through the partnership, the Scandinavian furniture will be available for delivery to New Zealanders’ doorsteps and for pick-up at 29 Mainfreight-operated points.
After a tour of the Tauranga facility, Luxon told media the competition Ikea brought to the local retail landscape would be a good thing.
“It creates huge opportunities for small businesses up and down New Zealand.”
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon tours Mainfreight Tauranga after the announcement of Ikea's distribution partnership with Mainfreight and NZ Post. Photo / Bijou Johnson
Luxon pointed to the partners involved with the distribution of Ikea products; the 500 new jobs that were being created in the Sylvia Park store alone; and the subcontractors, tradespeople, electricians, plumbers and carpenters involved in building the Auckland store.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon tours Mainfreight Tauranga after the announcement of Ikea's distribution partnership with Mainfreight and NZ Post. Photo / Bijou Johnson
Luxon said the Government wanted to “really accelerate the growth in this country”.
“The Westpac economists are saying New Zealand’s going to grow faster than Australia for the next two years. Treasury forecasts and economists are saying we’re going to have 2.7% growth each year for the next four years on average.
“There are huge opportunities when you get foreign investment coming into the country like this,” Luxon said about Ikea’s arrival in New Zealand.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon checks out the office environment at Mainfreight Tauranga after the announcement of Ikea's distribution partnership with Mainfreight and NZ Post. Photo / Bijou Johnson
Fabian Winterbine, Ikea Australia and New Zealand expansion manager, told the Herald they’re “on the home stretch now" and were “super excited to bring Ikea here to all the people of New Zealand”.
The announcement on September 4 mentioned a total of about 7500 products being available.
Lisa Haycock from the Mainfreight Training and Development Team said they were expecting a “big spike” in demand initially, heading into Christmas and the summer holidays.
Mainfreight had a prediction-based schedule of how many trucks they were expecting following the commencement of Ikea deliveries, using distribution within Australia as a template.
Mainfreight truck at Mainfreight Tauranga. Photo / Bijou Johnson
“We’ll be quite conservative.”
Haycock said it would be interesting if demand was poached from other businesses that Mainfreight dealt with already.
Alternatively, additional businesses might become interested in joining the Mainfreight “ecosystem”.
“There’s definitely a market and everyone will like Ikea.”
