New Zealanders will finally get to experience the labyrinthine layout of an Ikea store from December 4.
The new Sylvia Park site in Auckland’s Mt Wellington is one of the company’s largest in the Southern Hemisphere – about the size of three rugby fields.
Thousands of products will be available online and in store, and yes, they will be serving up their famous Swedish meatballs in a 426-seat cafeteria.
The store will open its doors on a Thursday, three weeks before Christmas, and Ikea said it had tested multiple scenarios relating to traffic and would run trials to iron out any bottlenecks.
So, why do we get so excited about international brands setting up on our shores?
Quantum Jump chief exutive and marketing expert Ben Goodale told The Front Page it might have something to do with New Zealand’s “small town” mentality.
“It’s very grounding for an international brand like that to arrive in New Zealand, not unlike Costco a couple of years ago. I think we go, ‘Wow, we’re finally there as a nation.’
“The Ikea store in Auckland will be the furthest away from the Swedish store that they have,” he said.
Goodale remembers lining up for the opening of London’s first Ikea store in the 80s, and even then, without social media and the internet, there was still a major buzz.
“Maybe there was an advert in the Evening Standard. It wasn’t far from my flat, but it felt big. I remember going to work the next day and people were talking about it,” he said.
Costco opened in Auckland’s Westgate in 2022, and there have been rumblings of a second location ever since. In February, the company came close to breaking even in its second full financial year operating in New Zealand, after boosting its revenue by $20 million.
Goodale said Costco, like Ikea, is big and “very much like a retail cathedral”.
“Costco hasn’t gotten any quieter ... Any time you go there, you’re gonna see it pretty busy. The queue for their hot roast chickens never seems to diminish.
“Some others have found it a little bit harder. Sephora has found it a little harder. The Topshop brand came into New Zealand, although it wasn’t directly owned by Topshop itself, it was through a local partnership ... Laura Ashley, The Body Shop, have come and gone. Some retail brands go through challenges globally anyway, just as trends change.
“It’s not quite on the same scale as Ikea, but the one who is really killing it over here is Chemist Warehouse. They’ve really tapped into something that we didn’t really have. That large-scale, low-cost, chemist/pharmacy offering,” he said.
So, what will it take for other international brands to eye up the New Zealand market’s potential?
Goodale said it could be the successes of others that lure brands to our shores.
“Ikea has been coming for years, and I don’t know whether Costco actually getting in, breaking ground, and building has given Ikea similar confidence to come into the market.
“They’ll be asking, ‘What is the economic situation?’, ‘What is working or thriving in New Zealand?’ and then identifying market gaps,” he said.
Listen to the full episode to hear more about what other international brands could be tempted to put down roots in New Zealand.
The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting, who joined NZME in 2016.
You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.