Speaker 1: Kyota at Chelsea Daniels here, host of the Front Page.
Speaker 1: We're taking away breakover summer, but to help build the gap,
Speaker 1: we're re issuing some of our most significant episodes of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five on behalf of the Front Page team.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening and we look forward to being back
Speaker 1: with you on January twelfth, twenty twenty six. Kyota, I'm
Speaker 1: Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast.
Speaker 2: Presented by the New Zealand Herald.
Speaker 1: Kiwis will finally get to experience the labyrinth that is
Speaker 1: an Ikea store from December fourth. The New Sylvia Parks
Speaker 1: site in Auckland is one of the company's largest in
Speaker 1: the Southern Hemisphere, about the size of three rugby fields.
Speaker 1: There'll be thousands of products available online and in store,
Speaker 1: and yes, they will be serving up their famous Swedish
Speaker 1: meatballs in a four hundred and twenty six seat cafeteria.
Speaker 1: So why do we get so excited about international brands
Speaker 1: setting up on our shores.
Speaker 2: And is there enough appetite for Ikea.
Speaker 1: And their meatballs to succeed where others haven't? Today on
Speaker 1: the Front Page, Quantum Jump, CEO and marketing expert Ben
Speaker 1: Gooddal is with us to explain the hype around one
Speaker 1: of the world's leading retailers. First off, Ben, what is
Speaker 1: the significance of Ikea finally coming to New Zealand.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think there's a number of factors here.
Speaker 3: It is a major, major retail brand globally and one
Speaker 3: of Sweden's great exports. I think to a certain extent,
Speaker 3: the sheer fact that so many Kiwis already have Ica
Speaker 3: products in their homes, which they may be brought from
Speaker 3: overseas or people are given to them, or they've bordered in.
Speaker 3: And so it's a brand that almost feels like it's
Speaker 3: been here for a while anyway, but but but actually
Speaker 3: planting itself. And it's very grounding for an international brand
Speaker 3: like that to arrive in New Zealand, not unlike Costcow
Speaker 3: a couple of years ago. I think we go, Wow,
Speaker 3: you know, we're finally there as a nation. We've got
Speaker 3: an ike We've a Costco, We've got Nah and m
Speaker 3: Sephora Victoria's Secret out of the airport. You know, brands
Speaker 3: which are you know, living in a country and far
Speaker 3: flung in the furthest away part of the world. In fact,
Speaker 3: I've read today that we are the Ikea store in
Speaker 3: Auckland will be the servist away from Sweden store that
Speaker 3: they have. You know, it can be something when when
Speaker 3: these brands turn up and they've got to us.
Speaker 2: In terms of Ikea.
Speaker 1: What makes it like I suppose the international juggernaut that
Speaker 1: it is is.
Speaker 3: Firstly, I mean, the product is amazing, you know, it's there.
Speaker 3: They're they're innovative, They're they're they're sustainable or as sustainable
Speaker 3: as you can be within with any category like that,
Speaker 3: and they're pushing to be more sustainable forever. They their
Speaker 3: focus on design is is fundamental to their success, you know.
Speaker 3: Be I mean I remember as a as as as
Speaker 3: you know, probably not long after a left stool, going
Speaker 3: to be opening of a first Ikea in London and
Speaker 3: queuing up that day to get in, and I didn't
Speaker 3: even really know what Ikea was something to do on
Speaker 3: a on a Sunday, but but being bowled over by
Speaker 3: by the design, you know, the that simple Swedish aesthetic
Speaker 3: and you know it really it's not just furniture. Albeit
Speaker 3: I also have cursed and I once foolishly brought a
Speaker 3: foot on from Ikea, and I'm sure. If any anyone
Speaker 3: watching this, imagine, you know, flat pack assembling of futon
Speaker 3: in a time where I did not own a power drool,
Speaker 3: so I had to hand handstrew it every last True,
Speaker 3: it was the I have blisters and I was not
Speaker 3: a happy person. But the futon was sensational.
Speaker 2: Well that's part of the fun of it, isn't it.
Speaker 2: The flat pack?
Speaker 1: I mean I say fun in quotation marks because I
Speaker 1: personally don't think it's fun.
Speaker 2: But in terms of I mean you mentioned London in
Speaker 2: the What Where When? What would that have been?
Speaker 3: That was nineteen eighty eight? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Was it the same kind of huge sensation?
Speaker 1: It was even then than it is now because in
Speaker 1: the eighties you didn't have social media or the Internet
Speaker 1: and things like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny. I was reflecting on that the other day.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's almost I don't know I remember it.
Speaker 3: I don't know why I was there. I don't know
Speaker 3: how I knew it was going on. Maybe there was
Speaker 3: an advert in the Evening Standard. It wasn't far from
Speaker 3: my flat, but it I remember going to work it
Speaker 3: the next day and wherever people were talking about it,
Speaker 3: and so I guess it was. It must have been
Speaker 3: on the news. It must have been on the radio.
Speaker 3: Maybe there was a piece of it in the Standard
Speaker 3: in the morning when people are getting on the tube
Speaker 3: with their newspaper. But you're right. I mean, I think
Speaker 3: it's funny now that having lived now with social media
Speaker 3: for ten fifteen years, we almost forgotten how did these
Speaker 3: things get shared and amplified and so on before all
Speaker 3: that happened. But I guess we just found other ways.
Speaker 3: I mean, apartment the meals, people talk to each other
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 1: Do you think Ikea will have to adapt to the
Speaker 1: key We market or is Ikea just Ikea?
Speaker 3: Well, I think initially, I mean they are just Ikea
Speaker 3: their product range. They're not going to develop products just
Speaker 3: for this market and all. You know, I'm not quite
Speaker 3: sure what products we were uniquely we would uniquely need.
Speaker 3: I mean, we're a lot different rest of the world. However,
Speaker 3: they have done a lot of groundwork, which they've talked
Speaker 3: about some of their media relations around going into Kiwi
Speaker 3: homes and understanding what how key Wes use products, what
Speaker 3: they need. I think probably understanding things like how key
Speaker 3: We use their garages, as you know, as well as
Speaker 3: their outdoors and so on. So I think probably it
Speaker 3: will be more they'll show up with the ranging because
Speaker 3: they they'll have a vast array of ranges, but not
Speaker 3: everything will be as appropriate in Autland as it might
Speaker 3: be in Tokyo or New York or whatever. So I think, yeah,
Speaker 3: we'll get a profile which will be developed deemed appropriate
Speaker 3: based on those insights.
Speaker 2: What do you make of the main freight partnership?
Speaker 1: Is that something quite unique for those who don't know
Speaker 1: they're going to be doing this main freight to home
Speaker 1: service and the offer will take heavier items into people's
Speaker 1: homes if that was their preferred option. That's quite revolutionary
Speaker 1: because I always fret when I buy something or a
Speaker 1: piece of furniture thinking am I going to fit it
Speaker 1: into my car?
Speaker 2: Or am I going to be able to carry this
Speaker 2: up my drive? So that's quite a unique.
Speaker 1: Having a main freight, you know, a couple of them
Speaker 1: actually lug it into.
Speaker 2: Your house is quite special.
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, well they are operating distribution in some
Speaker 3: other markets, especially where they don't have those stores. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's certainly a very smart, strong play for this market.
Speaker 3: You know, suddenly you know they've only got one store,
Speaker 3: but it's almost like have they got twenty nine stores,
Speaker 3: and we're also living in an evolved age of e commerce.
Speaker 3: People's happiness buying or line ever since Covid was a
Speaker 3: bit of a game changer for online buying in New Zealand,
Speaker 3: which is has always been a little bit behind the
Speaker 3: rest of the Western world in terms of uptake on
Speaker 3: e commerce. But it kind of makes sense for Ikea,
Speaker 3: especially once people have some familiarity with products. You know,
Speaker 3: if you're if you're living down country and your your
Speaker 3: friend is it shows you, shows you their food on
Speaker 3: which they're really delighted with, and you go, well, I'll
Speaker 3: have one of those, you know you if you just
Speaker 3: order one, then you can pick it up from your
Speaker 3: main freight delivery, so it's all to have it delivered
Speaker 3: into the house. So I think it's going to allow
Speaker 3: their distribution to be really powerful, and for other brands
Speaker 3: that are in that in that especially about heavier furniture offering,
Speaker 3: it's it's going to put some pressure on them.
Speaker 4: Your opening is also going to allow many New Ylanders
Speaker 4: for once again experience the love of Swedish meatballs that
Speaker 4: they remember from visiting Ikea stores overseas. I think all
Speaker 4: of us who have lived overseas and I did so
Speaker 4: for some time. Are very familiar where you put an
Speaker 4: itinerary together for your key. We friends and family coming
Speaker 4: to visit you, and they say that very lovely.
Speaker 3: But can we go to Ikea support and.
Speaker 4: Whether it's in Chicago or London, where I was for
Speaker 4: some time, and say that looks great, but let's get
Speaker 4: to the Ika quickly please.
Speaker 1: The only reason I can think of for Ikea that
Speaker 1: that mate would perhaps not make it work so well
Speaker 1: here is that because there's been an absence in the
Speaker 1: market of Ikea for so long. The likes of Kmart
Speaker 1: and the warehouse have their own flat pack furniture, obviously
Speaker 1: not to the scale of as Ikea, but people have
Speaker 1: gotten you know, cupboards and bookshelves and desks and things
Speaker 1: like that already.
Speaker 2: Do you think that IKEA's products will hit.
Speaker 1: As hard as it would have without those competitives, or
Speaker 1: do you think Kmart and the warehouse and the like
Speaker 1: should just give up? Now?
Speaker 3: Oh? No, I mean I think it's not always. I mean,
Speaker 3: first of all, I mean the people like to have choice,
Speaker 3: and you're going to have loyal shoppers that cam loyal
Speaker 3: shoppers at the warehouse. Ike is going to come in
Speaker 3: and it won't be for everyone, and I think in
Speaker 3: a way probably, I mean, it'll be interesting in those
Speaker 3: retailers have been doing research on what might happen once
Speaker 3: I here in market and how does it maybe reshape
Speaker 3: their ranging? You know, they may go down a price
Speaker 3: pointing strategy or you know, if there's resistance to flat pack,
Speaker 3: do do they have less? You know, maybe not quite
Speaker 3: so flat pack not more ready to go? And also
Speaker 3: I mean fundamentally is for business they're in. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think provided they can they can see an appropriate
Speaker 3: ROI they'll you know that they'll stick at it, but
Speaker 3: they probably need to. It may make them think about
Speaker 3: the ranging and what you know, because they may find
Speaker 3: they get really disrupted in some areas but maybe less
Speaker 3: so in others.
Speaker 1: Can you show some examples of perhaps international brands that
Speaker 1: we've gotten quite excited about and that have actually thrived
Speaker 1: in New Zealand? Of course I'm thinking initially straight off
Speaker 1: the back, Costco for example, that was huge when I came.
Speaker 1: I went to Costco on the second weekend that it
Speaker 1: was open, and I regret it. It was terrifying.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, actually I went to the opening day you
Speaker 3: can tell I'm a bit of an opening day junkie.
Speaker 3: And I went round and it was, Yes, it was
Speaker 3: quite quite the thing. I mean, the cues, the crowds,
Speaker 3: that raphic, the trap for traffic was I deliberately part
Speaker 3: of the little way away and I walked in. I
Speaker 3: decided I didn't want to get stuck in the car park.
Speaker 3: I think part of the big thing was with the
Speaker 3: sheer bars, the smiles on people's faces, the cues for
Speaker 3: the for the one dollar hot dogs, and and I
Speaker 3: think just the you know Costo like II here, it's
Speaker 3: a scale thing. You know, it's big, and you know
Speaker 3: very much. You know, a retail, a retail cathedral, and
Speaker 3: so yeah, babe, I mean certainly in Costco is just
Speaker 3: hasn't got quieter. You know, Like the queues, especially at
Speaker 3: weekends are arch quite incredible, although they do pretty well
Speaker 3: at pumping people through, but yeah, anytime you want to
Speaker 3: go over, you're going to see it's going to be
Speaker 3: pretty busy. And the queue for their hot roast chickens
Speaker 3: and things as never seems to diminish. They just get
Speaker 3: wiped out. So I mean, yeah, they've done well. I mean,
Speaker 3: some others have found a little bit harder. I think,
Speaker 3: you know, Sephora has found a little bit harder. Obviously.
Speaker 3: You know, the top Shop brand came into New Zealand
Speaker 3: although it wasn't it wasn't directly owned by top Shop itself,
Speaker 3: so it was through a local partnership, so it didn't
Speaker 3: have the same financial dynamics that it would be have
Speaker 3: been the actual brand owner coming in in terms of margin.
Speaker 3: So I think they found a bit tougher because they
Speaker 3: opened up at a magnificent site on Queen Street and
Speaker 3: it was a really lovely store, and foot traffic to
Speaker 3: it looked pretty good. But I think just getting those
Speaker 3: most margin aspects of your overhease too high, it's just
Speaker 3: very hard in retail. And you know, we've had other
Speaker 3: brands here, I mean, you know, Laura Ashley, Body Shotpp
Speaker 3: and so on. It's still have kind of come and gone,
Speaker 3: but they've they've also been having challenges. You know, some
Speaker 3: retail brands go through challenges globally anyway, just as as
Speaker 3: trends change. I mean, the retail chain it's it's not
Speaker 3: quite on the same level as I here, but the
Speaker 3: ones we are really killing it over here. Time in
Speaker 3: his chemist Warehouse and you know they they've really tapped
Speaker 3: into something that you know, we didn't really have that
Speaker 3: large scale, low cost chemist pharmacy offering and all those
Speaker 3: brands before. And you know they I mean I just
Speaker 3: saw yesterday is a new one going up to down
Speaker 3: the road and go wow. They I mean, they're they're
Speaker 3: they're just going gamebusters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, They're popping up everywhere, aren't they.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you could waive a magic wand and
Speaker 1: have an overseas retailer come here tomorrow, or really look
Speaker 1: at New Zealand as.
Speaker 2: A really good option, what would it be?
Speaker 1: I know what my couple are, so I've been advocating
Speaker 1: for Audi to come here for a long time. They've
Speaker 1: just grown roots in Australia. And then another one that
Speaker 1: I was thinking of the other day, would would we
Speaker 1: would we like a Walmart or something here?
Speaker 3: Well, in a way, the warehouses are Walmart, so I
Speaker 3: think I mean, who knows, maybe the Walmart could buy
Speaker 3: the warehouse and then that would that that would be
Speaker 3: interesting the an Audi, Yeah, I mean the the I mean,
Speaker 3: obviously it's maybe strange. A whole other podcast conversation would be,
Speaker 3: you know, the whole supermarket thing and yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: and but but you know, oldie, you know, to come in,
Speaker 3: it's it's just such a you know, one of your
Speaker 3: other questions before is you know, we are a very
Speaker 3: small market for which is why I hear of taking
Speaker 3: their time to come here. They have been richer solutions before,
Speaker 3: all richer market options to go into. So so it's
Speaker 3: when people do come here, it's because they've worked out
Speaker 3: or they think they've worked out how to make money.
Speaker 3: I mean brands. For me selfishly, it's I'm quite passionate
Speaker 3: about some overseas apparel brands. So there's one particular favorite
Speaker 3: of mine is an Italian brand called Boggy and it's
Speaker 3: it's a men's web brand, so you know, basically you
Speaker 3: can buy it online. They they ship out of Australia,
Speaker 3: but if you actually want to go to a store,
Speaker 3: you usually have to be in Italy. The chances of
Speaker 3: from companies in a rather slim. But then you know,
Speaker 3: maybe moving back and be said for some other some
Speaker 3: other things, in the old days, I would have said
Speaker 3: I would have loved to have had a Virgin megastore
Speaker 3: here because that was a place I spent an awful
Speaker 3: lot of time in the n the eighties and nineties.
Speaker 3: But as you know, music and entertainment shopping is chat.
Speaker 2: When we used to have records and CDs, records.
Speaker 3: And CDs and Virgin Megastore was like the ultimate place,
Speaker 3: Bad and Tower Records of the ultimate places. But they
Speaker 3: don't really insist the same way now, so it's not
Speaker 3: quite the same call.
Speaker 1: What would convince someone like another one over in Adelaide's
Speaker 1: just got a couple of TK Max's and a unique cloth.
Speaker 1: And there's another Japanese brand that we were talking about before.
Speaker 2: I think it's Mooji.
Speaker 1: What would make you know one of those brands actually
Speaker 1: look at New Zealand?
Speaker 2: What do we have to do.
Speaker 3: Well? It may partly be seeing some of these other
Speaker 3: international operators succeeding. So I mean Costo, I don't know
Speaker 3: whether IQ have been IQ have been coming for years,
Speaker 3: and I don't know whether Costo actually getting in and
Speaker 3: breaking ground and building is helped. If ikea similar confidence
Speaker 3: to come into market, it probably I mean for them,
Speaker 3: it's probably seen what is the economic situation, what what
Speaker 3: is working or thriving in New Zealand And? And identifying market gaps?
Speaker 3: You know, what isn't being said I think that's you know,
Speaker 3: come back to Chemist Warehouse. Why they've done well is
Speaker 3: there was nothing like it in market, and you know,
Speaker 3: the the established retailers of day to day pharmacy goods
Speaker 3: were we're doing in a in a much more traditional way.
Speaker 3: So they've come in discounted, but also the arranging is
Speaker 3: very very different, you know. I mean another brand that
Speaker 3: would be really interesting over here is Primark, which is
Speaker 3: you know, again fast fashion, super cheap. You know, it's
Speaker 3: you can you can get kitched out for so little
Speaker 3: and they and they their stores are massive over in
Speaker 3: particular the UK and multi floor pretty much pick up
Speaker 3: whatever you want. I would have thought the Prime RK
Speaker 3: would kill over here. Actually it would if if they
Speaker 3: come back to point why would they come here? They
Speaker 3: would just had to establish that there was a market
Speaker 3: gap that wasn't being served well by the existing insisting players.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Ben.
Speaker 3: You're welcome. It's pleasure.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
Speaker 1: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 1: at enzidherld.
Speaker 2: Dot co dot nz.
Speaker 1: The Front Page is produced by Jane Ye and Richard Martin,
Speaker 1: who is also our editor I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to
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Speaker 1: and tune in on Monday for another look behind the headlines.