Kmart will open its largest New Zealand store in Auckland's Westgate next month, becoming the first in the country to adopt Australia's refreshed store layout in a bid to deter shoplifting.
The 6700sqm store in the northwest commercial centre will feature Kmart's "Plan C+" format, with checkouts moved from its usual location at the centre of the store to the front, the retail giant announced today, as well as "enhanced product coordination, new service options and technology".
The store will open at 8am on September 10, trading 24/7 and creating more than 200 jobs.
Westgate would become Kmart's third 24-hour store in New Zealand alongside Manukau and Sylvia Park stores, both in Auckland.
Managing director Aleks Spaseska said the store reflected the company's ongoing investment in New Zealand.
"As the first New Zealand store to feature our Plan C+ format, Westgate brings together a more convenient shopping experience with the everyday low prices New Zealand families know and trust," she said.
"New Zealand is an important part of Kmart's growth story, and the opening of our Westgate store demonstrates our ongoing commitment to investing in the market for the long term."
The Westgate store was billed as the retailer's most ambitious launch in the country when it was first announced in 2024, with the largest sales floor it had ever built here.
Kmart said the site offered more than 600 parking spaces, both on-grade and undercroft, along with a dedicated all-weather direct-to-boot pick-up facility.
In Australia, the Plan C+ format has involved relocating cash registers from the middle of stores back to the exits, along with entry and exit gates.
Spaseska told analysts in June that 16 of roughly 300 Australian Kmarts had already been converted, with 40 stores trading in the format by the end of 2026/27.
Kmart originally moved its cash registers to the middle of its stores between 2012 and 2015, a move which has long been controversial with customers.
Retail NZ chief executive Carolyn Young told 1News in June the format would let Kmart better serve customers while tightening control over what leaves the store.
"They can move customers through more efficiently, manage the flow of goods and people out of the store so that people are only leaving the store with what they've paid for," she said.
Young said recent technology had likely cut the number of people stealing through self-service checkouts in some settings.
"There's technology improving all the time around the alerts and the ability to stop the customer continuing to process goods if they think that an error has been made."
Young said Kiwis' attitudes towards self-service checkouts were largely mixed.
"There are lots of people that like to be able to go in and control their own experience, they don't necessarily want to have a long conversation at the checkout."
SHARE ME