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Speaker 1: Today. Ike is Big opening eleven o'clock, the car park

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Speaker 1: opening eight point thirty this morning. Apparently, au Can Transports

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Speaker 1: warned of forty minute ques to exit the motorway at

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Speaker 1: Mount Wellington, cues of up to an hour to enter

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Speaker 1: the shop's car parks. Chris Wilkinson is with us this

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Speaker 1: morning from Retail First Retail Group. Good morning Chris, Good

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Speaker 1: morning Ryan. Do you reckon this could be a phizzic

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Speaker 1: because we haven't seen the type of interest in retail

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Speaker 1: just over the last wee while that we would like

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Speaker 1: to have seen.

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Speaker 2: No, definitely not. This is probably the most anticipated retail

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Speaker 2: opening New Zealand scene.

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Speaker 1: Do you reckon people will travel from around the country

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Speaker 1: for this.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we already know they are, and you know it's

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Speaker 2: developed a phenomenal following. What do people like? People like difference,

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Speaker 2: They like something that's unique. We hadn't seen anyone knows

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Speaker 2: about Ikia. New Zealand is a well traveled but we

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Speaker 2: haven't had that within reach and now we'd finally come

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Speaker 2: of age. Essentially, how does it perform?

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Speaker 1: Ikea in countries like out like Australia.

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Speaker 2: Are extremely well. It's been very popular. They continue to

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Speaker 2: put stores in and that demand continues to grow.

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Speaker 1: I'm told they have five hundred car parks at our care.

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Speaker 1: Does that sound like enough to you? Does that sound

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Speaker 1: like the right number of car parks for the size

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Speaker 1: of the store.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, good point. But in the old days, of course,

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Speaker 2: people traveled to our kids. Now more and more we've

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Speaker 2: seeing people shopping online. And of course there's great rail

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Speaker 2: and transport connections to Sylvia Park, and that's a key

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Speaker 2: reason of chosen that site.

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Speaker 1: Is just generally with retail, how important these days is

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Speaker 1: parking because you know, we've had this idea that you

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Speaker 1: rip up car parks and you put in cycle ways,

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Speaker 1: and you put in bus lanes and stuff like that,

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Speaker 1: which drives people nuts. But the idea is that you

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Speaker 1: will actually get more foot traffic into these areas. You'll

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Speaker 1: get more people into these areas. Does that work? Is

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Speaker 1: that working?

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Speaker 2: Getting a balance right is important in many cases. You know,

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Speaker 2: if you've got good public transport connections, leverage them. City centers,

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Speaker 2: we need to slow people down and better engage them

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Speaker 2: with their with their retail and hospitality environments. But in

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Speaker 2: provincial areas, you know, where you really need that that

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Speaker 2: connection to that wide attachment is Absolutely, you need parking.

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Speaker 1: Chris Wilkinson, First Retail Group appreciate your time this morning.

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Speaker 2: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, Listen live

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Speaker 2: to news Talks.

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Speaker 1: It'd be from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast

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Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio