What a Country Gives Up When IKEA Finally Arrives
The Swedish giant’s debut in New Zealand has sparked celebration, curiosity, and some soul-searching in a nation long defined by distance and DIY ingenuity.
Illustration: Sebastian Curi for Bloomberg
You know the sensation: step into a big-box retailer and suddenly you’re wandering a windowless maze, hours slipping by while syrupy music gently scrambles your brain. It’s called the Gruen effect — that subtle disorientation that turns sensible shoppers into impulse-buyers.
On Thursday, about 14,000 people — many of them unfamiliar with retail vertigo on this scale — were set loose in New Zealand’s first-ever IKEA. Customers drifted through the 34,000 square-meter (366,000 square-feet) store in a fluorescent-lit, meatball-fueled trance, pushing trolleys piled with an inexplicable assortment of knickknacks.