Yesterday was the capstone to a multi-year symphony of simping.
New Zealand’s last shred of dignity was pronounced dead at 3.22pm on December 3, when a press release was sent to all media letting them know the prime minister would be attending the opening of Ikea. The email was a capstone to a yearslong symphony of simping our nation has performed for the Swedish megacorp.
It started in 2018, when the meatball-churning chain announced it would be revealing its vision for New Zealand. News organisations dutifully sent breaking news alerts. The Spinoff, embarrassingly, ranked Ikea food. Stuff made a list of what it would buy if Ikea was open right now, only for the company to announce it was thinking of opening a store somewhere at some point in future.
Yesterday, that indistinct distant date finally arrived. Ikea landed in a nation on the verge of soiling itself in anticipation. “Seven years in the making, today Swedish mega retailer Ikea becomes one of us,” typed the headline writer for the Herald’s live blog, presumably while saluting and belting out Dave Dobbyn’s Welcome Home. Despite not having opened its doors, the store already had four five-star reviews on Google maps. Rova had already scoured its offerings on the Ikea app, arriving at the conclusion that “my God, these prices are good”.
For days ahead of the launch, transport officials, the media and the store itself had been forecasting a kind of furniture-induced traffic apocalypse. Road signs along Auckland’s motorways urged people to plan their journeys to accommodate the store’s schedule. “If you’re coming off the motorway into Mt Wellington, there could be about 40-minute delays,” said Auckland Transport’s operation centre manager Claire Howard, a week before opening.
Some were obviously put off by the grave warnings, but a host of Aucklanders still responded “ha ha, hell yeah, sounds great”. They queued up in their hundreds to go through one of the worst human experiences on offer outside of a medieval torture chamber. Ikea’s opening contained the disorienting qualities of a fever dream, but none of the sense of novelty or possibility. A sentient meatball gyrated its beefy hips to the sound of Sabrina Carpenter as a few furniture fans grinned on stoically at the front of the queue to get into the store. Further back, less lucky punters slumped over railings in a mix of boredom and discomfort. One child fell asleep. Journalists moseyed through the assembly, trying to find the most enthusiastic ones.
“We love you, please love us,” was the collective message to the international chain which made $3bn operating profit in the 2025 financial year. It rang out in the blanket coverage on Breakfast and the shopping challenges on Seven Sharp. It rang out in the chorus of meatball farts resounding in the cars and train carriages across Auckland. It rang out in the snip of the prime minister’s scissors as he cut the ribbon to open the store and finally allow the throngs to walk through the sliding doors, past the dancing meatball, the yellow-clad employees doing Mexican waves, and into the home decor sections where they proceeded to instantly get lost.
But why? Wasn’t this all a little bit embarrassing? It’s hard to imagine another country mustering up such passion for the opening of a furniture store. Keir Starmer’s numbers may be in the toilet, but the UK prime minister probably isn’t turning up to the opening of a Waitrose. Did we think Ikea would leave us alone with The Warehouse if we didn’t show enough excitement?
Maybe we just needed a bit of joy after a hard few years. But maybe it’s also this country’s less-heralded small poppy syndrome. We’re surprised by the attention of a big blue Swedish square. We don’t think we’re worthy of Scandi attention. There’s something sweet about that, and also wrong. This is the country that put Edmund Hillary on the moon; that placed a huge Santa on the main street of our biggest city and made him wink and beckon to children below. We’re worthy of flat-pack furniture. We’re worthy of meatballs. We’re even worthy of this huge $50 teddy bear, but only just. Yes, it’s exciting Ikea is here, but just remember, next time a multinational bats its eyes:
