Ikea was founded in 1943 and has been the world’s largest furniture retailer since 2008, with over 420 distinctive stores in more than 50 countries. It has a successful business model focused on offering stylish flat-pack furniture at affordable prices. There is a strong emphasis on containing costs across all parts of the business. In the UK, there are 27 Ikea stores, but expansion has now shifted from its big-box format to smaller store formats – urban, pick-up and pop-up. It is also aiming to further develop its consumer product range, particularly around smart home, and increase the automation of production and supply chain processes. Standard Ikea stores follow a one-way layout, leading customers counter-clockwise around the entirety of the store. Each Ikea store also features a restaurant serving traditional Swedish food. The furniture powerhouse was slow to launch its online offering but has focused on its ecommerce arm more as part of a transformation plan since 2018. This has included considerable investment in its click-and-collect services.
As retailers re-evaluate their store portfolios, an increasingly radical range of options and uses are being trialled by some of the UK’s biggest retail chains. In the first instalment of Retail Week’s examination of how Covid has changed the store, Mark Faithfull looks at some of the tests and pilots under way and how they might inform the next generation of stores.
Ikea has said it is entering the next stage of its plans to ‘scale down’ in Russia and Belarus in response to the war in Ukraine.
The homewares sector has enjoyed a boom over the past two years but, with DFS and ProCook issuing the latest in a string of profit warnings, has the pandemic bubble burst?
Swedish fashion giant H&M and Ikea’s largest franchisee Ingka Group have collaborated to open the first Atelier100 store at the Livat shopping centre in Hammersmith, west London.
Ikea is set to spend €3bn throughout 2023 on adapting its iconic out-of-town big-box stores to double up as ecommerce distribution centres.
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