Smiths City is a
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
retail chain selling
furniture and
home appliances
A home appliance, also referred to as a domestic appliance, an electric appliance or a household appliance, is a machine which assists in household functions such as cooking, cleaning and food preservation.
Appliances are divided into three ...
. It was originally founded by Henry Cooper Smith in 1918 as City Market initially involved with auctioning grain and product.
History
Early history
In 1918, Henry Cooper Smith established City Market on Colombo Street in Christchurch. The business initially auctioned grain, livestock and general goods, but later began to specialize in new and used furniture and hardware.
The business eventually became Smith's City Market, or Smiths City.
The flagship Colombo Street store was still operating more than 100 years later, in 2020.
Smiths City opened its first store outside Christchurch, in Filleul Street,
Dunedin
Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...
, in 1977.
By March 2020, it had 29 stores.
In 1983, Smiths City purchased 80% of
Noel Leeming Television Limited. Following the company being placed into receivership in 1991, the receivers sold both the North Island division and Noel Leeming Television Limited.
In 2004, Smiths City purchased 80% of local Wellington retailer LV Martin & Son.
LV Martin & Son was founded in 1934 as a Wellington household appliance store. LV Martin & Son merged with Smiths City at the end of 2015 with all stores now displaying the Smiths City branding.
COVID-19 pandemic
Smiths City was placed into a trading halt on 27 March 2020, two days into
New Zealand's COVID-19 lockdown, after it was initially denied permission to operate as an essential business.
It held talks with its primary lender
ASB Bank,
and the bank agreed to delay a debt repayment.
However, the company's share price plunged when the trading halt ended on the following trading day, 30 March.
The company's
Blenheim store, the largest tenant of
Marlborough District Council
Marlborough District Council ( mi, Te Tauihu-o-te-waka) is the unitary local authority for the Marlborough District of New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of tw ...
, was given a rent discount during the lockdown.
Within the first week of the lockdown, the company was also given permission to sell essential goods online.
In May 2020, Smiths City undertook a major restructure due to the ongoing impact of the virus.
The board voted to go into receivership to fast-track a potential sale without time-consuming shareholder approval.
It laid off 115 workers, about a quarter of its national workforce.
It also closed seven of its 29 stores.
The chain's remaining stores were sold to new owners later the same month.
The sale took place over
Zoom
Zoom may refer to:
Technology Computing
* Zoom (software), videoconferencing application
* Page zooming, the ability to magnify or shrink a portion of a page on a computer display
* Zooming user interface, a graphical interface allowing for image ...
, without the buyer being able to visit any physical stores.
2020 relaunch
The new owners closed Smiths City's operations in Auckland, where it had struggled against Australian rival chains like
Harvey Norman and
Freedom Furniture.
In June 2020, Smiths City opened its first new store after going into receivership in
Petone
Petone (Māori: ''Pito-one''), a large suburb of Lower Hutt, Wellington, stands at the southern end of the Hutt Valley, on the northern shore of Wellington Harbour. The Māori name means "end of the sand beach".
Europeans first settled in P ...
. The store is the only store in the Wellington region following the closures of the previous three branches; Lower Hutt, Porirua and Kapiti.
In July 2020, Smiths City opened a new flagship store at
The Colombo Shopping Centre in
Sydenham Sydenham may refer to:
Places Australia
* Sydenham, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney
** Sydenham railway station, Sydney
* Sydenham, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne
** Sydenham railway line, the name of the Sunbury railway line, Melbourne ...
.
The original flagship store, on nearby
Colombo Street
Colombo Street is a main road of the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. It runs south-north through the centre of Christchurch with a break at Cathedral Square. As with many other central Christchurch streets, it is named for a colonial Anglica ...
, remained open.
In August 2020, Smiths City moved its Dunedin store from Andersons Bay Road in
South Dunedin
South Dunedin is a major inner city suburb of the New Zealand city of Dunedin. It is located, as its name suggests, to the south of the city centre, on part of a large plain known locally simply as "The Flat". The suburb is a mix of industrial ...
, where it had been for 14 years, to the
Meridian Mall
Meridian Mall is a super-regional shopping mall located in Okemos, Meridian Township, a suburb of Lansing, Michigan, United States.
It opened in 1969, the same year as its main competitor, Lansing Mall, on the other end of the Lansing metro ...
in the city's
CBD, where
Kmart
Kmart Corporation ( , doing business as Kmart and stylized as kmart) is an American retail company that owns a chain of big box department stores. The company is headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, United States.
The company was inc ...
had moved out after 23 years.
By October 2020, the company had returned to profit,
had recruited more staff,
and had plans to open another five stores.
The store at The Colombo in Christchurch was rebranded to Smiths Trade Outlet in July 2023.
References
{{COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand
Furniture retailers of New Zealand
Consumer electronics retailers of New Zealand
Retail companies established in 1918
Companies based in Christchurch