For people queuing up in the cold from as early as 4.40am, Kmart is more than just a store. Tim Scott reports on the four-year hype surrounding Kmart’s return to Dunedin.
Dunedin shoppers are willing to go to unusual lengths to feed their “addiction” to Kmart.
During the four years the city was left without the Australian retail giant, a bus service transported hundreds of shoppers 200km to the next closest store in Invercargill.
And as their four-year wait came to an end yesterday, shoppers queued up from as early as 4.40am outside the new South Dunedin store to get their retail fix.
At the front of the queue were Benka Page-Smith and Ariella Lucas who said they had queued since 4.40am in the hopes of buying products from American cosmetics brand e.l.f.
They had decided to line up on the first day in case the products sold out.
“It’s going to sell out so quick,” Ms Lucas said.
“There’s nowhere else in New Zealand or online or anything,” Ms Page-Smith said.
“It’s only down the road as well.”
Now it was open, Ms Lucas said they planned to visit the store at least once a week.
Dunedin had been without Kmart since 2020, after the company cited concerns about required seismic strengthening work within its Meridian Mall premises that made it choose to vacate the building.
Its return was announced in October 2022, after it found a home in the former Smiths City building in South Dunedin.
Dunedin resident Bex Tobin said there seemed to be “a bit of a craze” centred around Kmart.
Mrs Tobin began running a “girlie bus” that took shoppers from Dunedin to the Kmart and former H&J Smith store in Invercargill — the closest Kmart while Dunedin was without a store.
She had transported about 150 passengers in total, and those on her bus would do “anything to go back down to Kmart”, she said.
“It was like something being taken away from them that they were addicted to,” she said.
Megan Ide, a self-proclaimed “Kmart mum” from Queenstown, said people could get more bang for their buck at Kmart — especially for children’s clothing.
While she did not line up first thing yesterday, she planned to visit the new store later in the day while she was in the city for a holiday.
“I think Kmart mums are bargain hunters,” Ms Ide said.
First Retail Group managing director Chris Wilkinson said there was a “universal attraction” to Kmart.
“It’s highly likely that the other businesses around it will do well as well,” he said.
