An Auckland company has stolen a march on Swedish flatpak furniture giant IKEA, with plans to open a $60 million mega furniture-homeware store.
An artist's impression of the planned Nido store in west Auckland. Photo: RNZ / Supplied
The new store Nido is on a 2.7-hectare site in west Auckland and there are plans to open the store in spring.
It plans to offer as many as 10,000 products from European and American suppliers bigger than the offering from IKEA. It will also have its own food outlet.
"Nido will cater for the wide range of budgets and tastes across the local market. Kiwi shoppers will be able to access the latest products, technology and global design trends," managing director Vinod Kumar said.
Earlier this month, Ikea announced a plan to build a large store in Auckland to open in a few years time.
Mr Kumar said Ikea's arrival would not hurt his business' prospects and their offerings would be different, despite both selling European-designed and manufactured furniture.
About one third of Nido's products would be its own brands, including made-to-measure products, such as units and shelves.
Only one store is planned, but online retailing would be offered early. Mr Kumar said delivery would be costly, depending on demand.
Decade on the drawing board
Nido, which is costing up to $60 million to develop and build, has been close to a decade in the making.
Mr Kumar was involved in the development of the Mitre10 Mega store format, and has previously been involved in residential property development.
An attempt to launch a furniture retail company under the name Uuber failed in August, 2017, following the arrival of the ride-sharing company of the same name in different spelling, Uber.
Mr Kumar said they had to start over, but no store had been developed at that stage.
"We had to go back to the drawing board again. It is irrelevant."
"I had to sell off all my businesses to come up with this," Mr Kumar said. "I'm putting all of my life savings into this [Nido]."
Auckland-based commercial property firm Maat Group is also financing the project.