Invercargill's first Chemist Warehouse is a week away from opening, if a notice taped to the door of the new Leven Street store is any guide.

The handwritten-style sign, tells customers the store is not open yet, that the fit-out is still under way, and that the team is "aiming to open Friday 13th November". It is signed off by the "CW Invercargill team".

The building, a two-storey yellow block with arched windows on the Leven Street side, has already been dressed in the Australian chain's trademark shouting: "Stop paying too much", "Beat everyone's prices" and "Up to 85% off big brands". Another sign advertises click-and-collect, and a third promises free prescriptions, explained in smaller print as $5 off the standard subsidised prescription charge.

That last line is the one most likely to matter to Southland households. The Government brought back the $5 co-payment on funded prescriptions in July 2024. Chemist Warehouse chooses to absorb that charge itself, so a customer picking up a standard subsidised script pays nothing at the counter. Smaller pharmacies told RNZ in 2024 that discount chains could afford to do that because of their retail sales, and that the practice was pulling prescription customers away from community pharmacies.

The Invercargill store is not a straight corporate arrival. The Otago Daily Times reported in September that two long-established local businesses, Glengarry Pharmacy and Windsor Pharmacy, were combining to become Chemist Warehouse Invercargill at the former Torpedo7 site on Leven Street, with local pharmacists Rachael Hewton and Steve Jo as part-owners and operators. Mr Jo told the paper the plan was for regulars to keep seeing the faces they knew. Pharmacy Today later reported that a third pharmacy, Essentials, was part of the merger, and that the combined store was set to be the chain's biggest in the country.

Torpedo7's Invercargill shop was among the stores the outdoor retailer shut after its sale to Tahua Group in 2024; the brand went online-only early this year, according to RNZ.

Hiring has been under way for weeks. Chemist Warehouse's careers site listed a permanent full-time pharmacy assistant role for Invercargill on 3 November, and Seek carried that job alongside a full-time store person position posted about three weeks earlier. The company has not published a total headcount for the store.

Chemist Warehouse opened its first New Zealand shop in Auckland in late 2017. Inside Retail reported in August, citing parent company Sigma Healthcare's annual report, that the chain had reached 75 New Zealand stores after 14 openings in the year to June, with six more under construction and more than 20 further leases signed. Sigma has set out a path to more than 100 stores, employs more than 3000 people here and put New Zealand network sales above $1 billion for the year, up 20 per cent.

Invercargill has been waiting a while. Property reports as far back as 2022 named both Chemist Warehouse and rival Bargain Chemist as possible tenants for the empty former Farmers building at 150 Dee Street. Bargain Chemist eventually took about 700 square metres at the Leven Street end of that building, the Southland Tribune reported in October last year, meaning the city's two discount pharmacies will sit within a short walk of each other.

For the city's existing pharmacies, that is the new reality. The Pharmacy Guild has said for several years that discount competitors squeeze community pharmacy margins and have pushed some to trim hours or services. Three Invercargill pharmacies have chosen to join the newcomer rather than fight it; others on Dee Street, Tay Street and in the suburbs will be watching the Leven Street doors on Friday.