After just under a month

Auction

February 13 was the last big clear-out day at the former kika in Linz-Urfahr. Today, Thursday, the furniture store's indoor playground will be auctioned off.

(Bild: Wenzel Markus)

A small ball pool, slide, a box full of XXXL Lego bricks - all part of the indoor play area in the former kika in Linz-Urfahr, which is being auctioned off today, Thursday. The once popular play area for the little ones is one of the last remaining items in the auction sale at the furniture retailer that slipped into insolvency.

Before kika/Leiner's remaining 17 furniture stores closed on January 29, there was hardly any left for the bargain hunters. The stores of the retail chain, which had once again slipped into insolvency, had been literally bought empty beforehand.

Nevertheless, in the end there was still enough merchandise left for which a buyer was sought in the last few weeks - albeit by other means. The Upper Austrian company recycling specialist Lenox-Trading and the Styrian online auction house aurena.at have been working flat out since the end of January to inventory all the remaining stock and then put it up for auction on the online platform.

Even though today, Thursday, there will be a follow-up auction of 21 items at kika in Graz-Straßgang and 358 lots of garden and outdoor furniture, and individual auctions of vases and similar items are also scheduled for the next few days, one month later the big chunk is already done.

75 auctions have already taken place
And the rush for shelves, books, desks and the like was huge. "We have already held 75 auctions and auctioned off more than 16,000 items," reveals Aurena-Tech Managing Director Jürgen Blematl. There is still a lot of stock left in the main warehouse in St. Pölten, where 10,000 cubic meters of garden and outdoor furniture were stored. "The auctions will continue here in the spring," says Blematl. "The branches are essentially complete," adds Norbert Lehner.