Ikea: All the promises don't mean a thing without action

Tuesday, 28 January 2020

OPINION: It has been just over a year since Swedish furniture giant announced it had its sights set on New Zealand.

The coverage was breathless but the details were scant.

Ikea's New Zealand manager, Will Edwards, told his captive audience that it took time to set up 'a truly big blue and yellow iconic Ikea store' but that the company wouldn't keep New Zealanders waiting.

A year ago, Ikea said it was coming to New Zealand. We are still waiting for more news.

We were told the full-size store would be somewhere in Auckland and could take up to 10 years to build - but the city would get a pop-up shop as a taster.

* Ikea inches closer to Kiwi store and files documents with Companies Office

* Costco is coming to New Zealand, changing the way we shop

Ikea New Zealand manager Will Edwards and chief executive Jesper Brodin at the New Zealand announcement.

* David Jones to 'aggressively' close stores as profit plunges**

Where in Auckland? Who knows. When? Again, a mystery.

What we do know is it has been 12 long months since and we have got nothing.

Hundreds of lines of text have been spent speculating possible locations and timelines.

But we have taken a turn around the sun without anything concrete coming from the January 2019 fanfare.

In June Ikea's parent company Ingka registered Ikea New Zealand with the Companies Office.

Since then, every large lot of land has been proposed as a possible site for the store by commentators and every new shop fit-out a possible location for the pop-up store.

But at the same time, the last few years have been rough for retail around the world.

New Zealanders have been waiting, patiently, for Ikea.

Australian department store chain David Jones has been 'aggressively closing stores' across the ditch and Kaufland, a large format supermarket on par with Aldi, announced it was exiting the Australian market halfway through building its first distribution centre.

Commentators in the United States have been talking about a retail apocalypse, with major brands like Kmart, Sears and Pier 1 announcing the closure of 1700 stores this year and we're not even through January yet.

In New Zealand 3366 shops closed last year compared to the 3105 that opened, a deficit of 261 stores, according to Retail NZ.

But there have also been glimmers of hope.

In June, big-box retailer Costco collected journalists together at a site in north-west Auckland and announced it open a store there in three years.

Stuff has been told the resource application is well on its way.

There is plenty of land up that way if a big global furniture company wants to set up shop. Or down in Drury at the new Kiwi Properties development. There are even a few open spaces in Mt Wellington, though Ikea's attempts to build close to Sylvia Park in 2008 were rejected by the Environment Court.

So far regular emails to the Ikea media department are met with 'we don't have any new information to share at this time regarding Ikea in New Zealand. We will be sure to keep you informed as updates come available'.

So until something leaks we will patiently wait and see what the Swedish bring us and when.