Ikea anticlimax: Kiwis rage over mystery location

After years of waiting, Kiwis now want more information about Ikea. Photo/123RF.

Kiwis have taken to social media to vent frustration at the absence of any concrete information on the actual location of Ikea's New Zealand store.

At a press conference this morning, Ikea boss Jesper Brodin and market leader Will Edwards revealed only that Auckland would be getting the store.

"Without being specific, it's a dream, but we don't have a plan yet," said Jesper Brodin, president and CEO of the Ingka Group, which holds the franchise for Ikea in New Zealand and other parts of the world.

"We are at the start of the process. It's too premature to be specific," said market potential development manager Will Edwards.

The lack of concrete details saw many Kiwi fans of the organisation vent their frustrations on social media this morning.

One commenter described the whole press conference as an easy advertisement for the company with little information.

What we do know so far is that a large-format Ikea, featuring over 7000 products, will open in "few years".

There's been speculation an Ikea franchise licence costs around $35 million and the company would be looking at around $90 million to build a full-service store here. Edwards says Ikea is close to putting a price tag on the build, but he isn't giving anything away.

So the Ikea announcement today was not really an announcement at all, No location or dates given.
Except "Auckland"

— Wendy Andresen (@WendyWings) January 10, 2019

In the meantime, Aucklanders will have a pop-up store to get a taste of the stores.

Further plans also include the South Island, with the executives announcing plans to take the stores beyond Auckland.

Once again, the company would not provide any clear details on when the store would open or even which city would serve as its location.

While the press conference may not have had all that much information, it piqued the curiosity of all the major news organisations in New Zealand.

Yeah - bit of a flop, imo. I was expecting an actual site announcement. The biggest piece of relevant info here was the impending arrival of the pop-up store until the actual location opens.

— James Fluker | Moo Deng stan account 🦛 (@JamesFluker) January 10, 2019

There was no shortage of journos at the venue, recording live videos, taking notes and eagerly awaiting the location announcement.

The big announcement never came, but the scraps that were handed out by the executives were enough to keep the hype machine ticking along.

- Additional reporting by Nikki Mandow from BusinessDesk.