Our Story

Since 1982, The Warehouse has grown from one small store on Auckland's North Shore to New Zealand's largest general merchandise retailer with 88 stores.

The company strapline, "Where Everyone gets a Bargain", was the brainchild of founder Sir Stephen Tindall.  Stephen (pictured below) saw an opportunity for innovative price-driven retailing. His timing was perfect.

So he sold his caravan, downgraded his wife's car and cashed in his superannuation to raise money for this first store.  It looked like a big old warehouse, so he called it ‘The Warehouse’ - where everyone gets a bargain.   

With a focus on keeping costs down and reinvesting profits to ensure prices were low, The Warehouse began to develop in a unique and highly successful way.

During the 1980’s The Warehouse expanded and enjoyed phenomenal success.  It was a 30 million dollar business by 1987.  And it never stopped growing.  In 1991 the first Warehouse Stationery store opened and in 1994, The Warehouse went public! 

The Warehouse is now the largest general merchandise retailer in New Zealand, employing over 8,000 people.    Over the years we’ve teamed up with some amazing designers and well known companies such as Cadbury, Mattel, Wiltshire, Vodafone, Mambo, Sanyo, Republic and our very own Rachel Hunter. 

We’re now far more focused on giving our customers more than they bargained for – high quality products, while still maintaining those low, low prices.

Click here to read more about Stephen's story.

July 2006 - Stephen Tindall being awarded the Blake Medal which is presented annually by the Sir Peter Blake Trust to recognise leadership. His contribution to the community through the Tindall Foundation was also acknowledged.