NZ's largest furniture retailer to open, 180 jobs created

New Zealand's largest furniture and homewares retailer Nido will open its doors to the public tomorrow.

The new $60m, 27,000 sq m store in West Auckland will carry more than 10,000 product lines and create 180 new jobs in the coming year.

The Henderson store is set to rival IKEA.

Managing director Vinod Kumar said hundreds of containers of product arrived in the months prior to Covid-19.

"We have sourced products from NZ, Europe and the US and will be the largest retail operation in the country and, for those outside of Auckland, we will eventually offer online shopping functionality through our website and provide nationwide distribution for our products."

He said the first stage of recruitment has been completed with a further 90 roles to be advertised later in the year.

The locally owned and operated store, will house 80 brands exclusive to the store and feature more than 100 display rooms.

"The scale of our store is hard to comprehend until you are in it, but to give some indication, we are able to accommodate a full-size three-bedroom showhome inside which has been home staged by our team of interior designers," Kumar said.

Once more Covid-19 restrictions are lifted, the second level of the store and a cafe will open, Kumar said.

Parking spaces will be available for more than 600 vehicles.

Managing director of First Retail Group Chris Wilkinson said the opening would boost retail confidence.

"People have been focused on their home environment for the past eight weeks, and we know that during the lockdown the businesses in these categories have done very well selling their essential items. These types of stores will be the first destinations Kiwis head to once we come out of lockdown as many of them will have identified projects they want to get started."

Wilkinson said businesses would also be looking to offerings like Nido as we transition to a new way of working post Covid-19.

"We are going to see a significant change in people's workplaces and more of us will be working from home, so business owners are also going to need to reconsider commercial environments and office solutions, so we expect to see growth here too."

Nido was founded by civil engineer Vinod Kumar, who has previously owned three Mitre 10 stores and helped to develop the Mitre 10 Mega concept store.

Nido is similar to Ikea and will, like the Swedish retailer, have an in-store restaurant and children's play area when complete.

IKEA has confirmed it will open a store its first New Zealand store in Auckland - but has not disclosed where or when. The construction of its store is expected to take years to complete.