Ikea excitement reaches fever pitch
Sunday, 30 November 2025
Auckland woman Lynda Irving, a Scottish ex-pat, used to drive over two hours from Edinburgh to Newcastle, England, just to visit Ikea.
But soon, she’ll be a 30 minute drive away.
Irving grew up with Ikea and building flatpack furniture, and like most UK families do, is looking forward to being able to make a day trip to Ikea Sylvia Park once it opens Thursday this coming week.
It is not uncommon for families to spend an entire day in Ikea, dropping their kids off at the staffed Småland play area, and shopping or browsing all day in between stopping for a meal or a quick bite to eat.
Irving has fond memories of Ikea through all stages of her life, like that hours-long drive to England with her family, and helping her now-husband Craig build and fit an Ikea kitchen in his house in South Lanarkshire.
“My extended family live in the west of Scotland, and the nearest Ikea was in the north-east of England, so anyone coming from the west used to stop in where we lived or stay over, and the next day they would do the rest of the journey down to Gateshead for a trip down to Ikea,” says Irving.
“When Scotland got its first one in 1999, people would actually come stay with us in Edinburgh, because it was in Edinburgh, just so they could go to Ikea.”
The North Shore mum of two used to shop Ikea in Australia before moving here, and says she is most looking forward to having access to good quality furniture in New Zealand.
Similarly-priced furniture from the likes of The Warehouse or Kmart just doesn’t compete on quality or longevity, she says.
“My aunt and uncle bought Ikea furniture in the UK, and brought it over to Australia when they relocated a few years ago; this furniture has lasted them 22 years,” Irving told the Sunday Star-Times.
“I didn't realise [I was such a big fan] until I was talking to Craig, saying that we've got only one room in our house without any Ikea furniture.”
Despite this surfeit of Ikea products, Irving has a long list of furniture she is wanting to get her hands on when Ikea Sylvia Park opens.
Top of that list is a Besta TV unit for a media wall in her lounge. Other items she is itching to get her hands on include bookshelves for the home office.
“Every time we've bought something from an [Ikea products] importer, we've bought just the bare minimum of what we actually need,” Irving said of the anticipation and long wait for the New Zealand store opening.
“It's one of these places when you've got nothing to do over a weekend or it's raining, you end up going, and you walk away with something you didn't realise you needed.”
Ikea Sylvia Park is set to open its doors for the first time on Thursday at 11am, more than six years after the Swedish furniture giant first announced its intentions to set up shop in New Zealand, in an event held at Auckland’s The Cloud.
Even back then, the retailer acknowledged it had taken its time to get to the country - but said once its Auckland megastore was open it would quickly accelerate its expansion into other parts of the country.
Its New Zealand launch was delayed by years due to lengthy and costly building consents and red tape it had to navigate prior to the government’s RMA fast track project reform came into effect, as well as stops and material delays through the Covid period.
Ikea has said it wants to open more stores in New Zealand once Ikea Sylvia Park opens, with its eyes set on Wellington and Canterbury for a South Island base.
The Sylvia Park store will stock more than 7500 items - the same goods the world’s largest furniture retailer is known for overseas - everything from slot in wardrobes and full-scale kitchens to sofas, lighting and children’s toys through to outdoor furniture and large appliances such as fridges.
Like all Ikea stores, Sylvia Park will have an in-store 400-seat restaurant, bistro for coffee and quick snacks, along with a Swedish food market selling Swedish lollies and goods, cinnamon buns and its popular meatballs.
Ikea’s public relations and communications teams have been in overdrive, with the company drip feeding information about the store’s pending launch.
The company is hosting a series of “house parties” around the country and promotional pop-ups in Wellington and Christchurch to showcase some of its products.
Ikea Sylvia Park’s menu will feature all the foodie favourites such as meatballs and schnitzel, plus a handful of Kiwi-inspired dishes that can only be found in the Sylvia Park store, such as hoki fish and chips ($14), pavlova with whipped cream and Swedish lingonberry jam ($4), lamb and kūmara pie ($6.50), salmon poke bowl and a Thai beef salad.
The retailer says it is expecting to sell 3500 hot dogs each week.
On opening, online shopping on the local Ikea website will also turn on, with nationwide delivery and 25 Ikea collection points available to fulfil orders around and outside of Auckland.
Ikea executive Fabian Winterbine, expansion manager for Ikea Australia and New Zealand, said the team working at the 34,000 sqm store was expecting a “huge” opening week.Winterbine is expecting some super fans to wait hours to get inside the store, and some even to camp out overnight.
“We're super excited to finally be opening after all this time, as I'm sure New Zealanders are as well. The store looks really good and everything will be ready for next week,” says Winterbine, who has been leading work for the New Zealand market launch over many years.
“I think customers are gonna love it.”
Winterbine says he knows there is a lot of excitement from New Zealanders about the store opening and Ikea expects “a lot of visitors from day one”.
He picks that Ikea’s storage solutions and items like its Billy bookcases will be popular.
Winterbine believes Ikea will transform Kiwis’ retail experience and how they shop.
“Ikea will have a broad, deep range of home furnishing products that are well designed for function, sustainability and affordability. [Our impact] will be choice, it'll be inspiration, and the actual store experiences you'll see is nothing like any other retail experience in terms of both the scale of the site, but also just the home facing solutions.
“It's not just showing products. We'll have 50-plus room settings and homes that actually show real life at home and inspiring solutions. That side of it will be very unique.”
The omnichannel retailing technology Ikea will have at play upon launch will also be unseen in the market, he says. “The way in which we integrate our regional tools and technology into the shopping experience will also be very different.
“We have our app and with that you can basically shop and go; you can scan a product for all its product benefits and information, but you can also get it and pay for it by scanning your phone and then basically walk out of the store. The ease of shopping with Ikea will be really something different for New Zealanders.”
Ikea believes its launch will also force other retails to up their game. But Winterbine says the retail giant also hopes its launch lifts overall furniture and furnishing spending.
“Hopefully people will be wanting to reinvest in their home; have nice homes, have functional homes, and I think that will be good for everyone.”
Ikea has spent $400 million to set up shop in New Zealand. While that is mostly in line with what it would spend to launch into a new market with a megastore, Winterbine says the company had spent a couple of million more on the Sylvia Park store, on additional steel needed to meet seismic requirements.
But it wasn’t the most expensive large-format store Ikea had ever built, as some believed.
Excluding the supermarkets, Ikea could become one of New Zealand’s highest turnover retailers. The company was unwilling to share any sales forecasts for the market.
While Ikea is eyeing Wellington and Christchurch as locations for potential future stores - which could come in the form of smaller format offerings - there are no plans. Winterbine says demand and the success of the Sylvia Park store would inform any decisions about where it expands to next.