Inside Money: Christmas smells, oh Christmas smells

Photo / Hawkes Bay Today

Why does The Warehouse stink?

I'm not the only one who's wondered what The Warehouse smells of.


This guy reckons it's all a deliberate branding ploy.

"Have you noticed when you walk into any Warehouse store that there is a particular aroma that is quite specific and unique to their stores?," Wayne Attwell senior brand strategist at Bold Horizon writes.

You can tell he's in marketing. It's not an 'aroma', it's a stench.

In this strange chatroom Duncan74 also reveals a fascination with the odour of discount shopping: "I keep going back not for the bargains, but because I'm determined to identify what it is that makes the unique Warehouse smell."

Ana&Steve suggest "new shoe rubber and rotten milk", which is a pretty good description of the putrid whiff of imported goods.

And if the stench is bad in NZ, imagine what it's like at the source, probably somewhere in China.

The Economist touched on this subject in a June article that speculated on when Chinese labour costs would start to rise.

"The smell from the rubber is unbearable," a migrant worker told the South China Morning Post, "but we don't even get a toxic fumes subsidy."

If the Chinese workers did get stink rates, of course, we'd have to pay more in NZ for their smelly products - or buy less.

An article in the latest Reserve Bank Bulletin titled 'New Zealand's imbalances in a cross-country context' says the country is already beginning to alter its shopping habits.

"There are also signs of internal rebalancing," the article says. "Households in New Zealand and in many countries have made efforts to increase saving and reduce indebtedness. In the short term, lower consumption and credit growth is weighing on growth.

"While these shifts represent a natural cyclical adjustment to the past recession, it is important that they develop into a structural change in behaviour."

The Warehouse might have a different smell next Christmas.