Our Story
The Great Kiwi Bookstore didn’t begin with a business plan. It grew from a lifetime spent surrounded by books, customers and the belief that a good bookshop should be at the heart of its community.
Bookselling has been part of the Raines family for decades. I grew up in our family bookshop, Target Books & Stationery, and began working there at the age of fourteen. What started with unpacking boxes, filling shelves and helping customers soon became a lifelong career.
Over the following thirty years, I experienced nearly every part of the bookselling industry. I worked on the shop floor, managed stores, selected and purchased books, and held roles supporting bookstores around New Zealand. Our family business traded under several well-known retail banners over the years, but the values behind it never changed: know your customers, support your community and never underestimate the importance of putting the right book into someone’s hands.
My career also gave me the opportunity to travel to Seattle through a Booksellers and Kobo scholarship to attend the American Booksellers Association’s Winter Institute. While there, I spent time at the renowned Elliott Bay Book Company and spoke with its owners about what makes a truly memorable independent bookstore. That experience helped shape a long-held ambition—to create a bookshop with its own identity, deeply connected to its building, its town and the people it serves.
That ambition eventually became The Great Kiwi Bookstore.
In February 2026, after many years as part of a national franchise, we turned the page and became fully independent. It was a bold step, but also a return to what our family had always done best: running a local bookstore with the freedom to choose our own direction.
Our home is Kaiapoi’s beautifully restored former BNZ Bank building—a place filled with history, character and stories of its own. We wanted to create more than a shop inside it. We wanted to build the kind of bookstore people remember: warm, welcoming and a little bit magical.
Today, The Great Kiwi Bookstore brings together books, stationery, greeting cards, gifts, games, puzzles, art and locally made products. We champion New Zealand stories, local authors and artists, while also offering a carefully chosen range of books from around the world. We host events, support community initiatives and try to make every visit feel personal.
We are proudly family-owned, fiercely independent and deeply grateful to be part of Kaiapoi.
The name may be new, but the story behind it has been generations in the making. The Great Kiwi Bookstore is the next chapter in our family’s bookselling history—and we’re only just getting started.
- Jared Raines