Mayhem predicted by staff as new Kmart store in Petone opens

Wednesday, 31 May 2017

Kmart Petone is getting ready to open its doors to a crowd of 6500.

Kmart staff are getting ready for mayhem on the eve of the company's 20th New Zealand store opening its doors.

After about 10 months of construction, the Petone store is scheduled to open at 8am on Thursday.

Security guards and more than 30 staff will cover an expected crowd of about 6500 people.

The new store will give away 250 goody bags to the first 250 customers who make a purchase.

There would be no letting in customers in waves; everyone would be let in at the same time.

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Despite Petone being a hot area for big box retail, with The Warehouse, Briscoes, and Bunnings Warehouse down the road, Kmart country manager Jason Picard said the company had been eyeing the area for some time.

'We don't focus on competition, we focus on making sure we've got the best offer. We focus on lowest prices for goods that are on trend and merchandise that gives us a point of difference from other retailers,' he said.

Staff were expecting shoppers to sleep outside the store on Wednesday night to be first in the door.

Goody bags would be given to the first 250 customers who bought any item.

The store is stocked with 40,000 different products including homewares, electronics, clothing and baby merchandise and hired 120 full time, part time and casual staff in the local area.

The New Zealand online store opened on Wednesday and attracted more traffic than the Australian website.

The store would be set up into three 'worlds' - home, clothing, and kids - to display merchandise that fell into the same category together.

'We've broken up our range so that everything you'd find in a kitchen – like a cookbook and a toaster – are in the same place,' Picard said.

Kmart's opening comes as competition among big-box retailers heats up.

Traditional big box favourite The Warehouse had felt the heat of international competition recently, as the group's half year net profit to January fell to $13.6 million, compared with $57.2m a year earlier.

First Retail managing director Chris Wilkinson said Kmart was continuing its march through urban and regional New Zealand.

'They are putting stores in and their range and their consumer proposition has been quite transformational,' he said.

'They've got quite quickly to where many retailers want to be. Kmart have a differentiated range and they've been able to transcend across a range of demographics.'

Picard said customer feedback and market research were key to understanding what shoppers wanted.

'People like to have new items in their homes and if they can afford to have something new every three or four months, people feel good about being able to do that,' he said.