IKEA, the Swedish retail major known for its large-format stores spanning 300,000-400,000 square feet, is launching a small-format city store at Worli in Mumbai. Sized at 80,000 square feet, the store will be open for customers from December 9.
IKEA already has a large format store and an app operational in Mumbai. However, the new store introduction is an initiative by the company to be closer to its customers while also an attempt at omnichannel push.
“Today marks a major milestone as we add a new customer meeting point in Mumbai, our first omnichannel market for IKEA in India. People can now visit our IKEA Worli City Store, our Navi Mumbai store, shop online, or buy their favourite and affordable products at the store, online, or through our click-and-collect services. This omnichannel store format enables us to make home furnishing even more accessible,” said Peter Betzel, CEO and CSO (chief sustainability officer), IKEA India addressing a media briefing.
The store will have an inventory of about 8,000-9,000 products of which over 2,200 products will be available for direct takeaway and the rest can be home delivered. The new city store, however, is only open for customers who have been administered both doses of vaccination. Only customers with a vaccine certificate, with over 14 days lapse after the second dose, are allowed to enter the store for shopping. According to the company, all the employees at the city store are fully vaccinated.
IKEA plans to launch more small-format stores in Bengaluru, at more locations in Mumbai and other cities as well and even in tier II cities and is actively scouting for locations, according to Per Hornell, area manager and country expansion manager, IKEA India. The IKEA city stores will be on top of its plans to launch flagship large stores at two locations in Delhi-NCR – in Gurgaon and Noida. The furniture retailer will also continue launching online stores. It already has an online presence in Hyderabad, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Surat, Ahmedabad, and Vadodara.
The furniture major had launched its first store in India with much fanfare in Hyderabad in 2018 and had then announced plans to launch a large format store in Navi Mumbai. But in a strategy pivot, the company next launched an app in Mumbai and later a large format store as it tried to create an omnichannel experience for Indian consumers. IKEA plans to continue with this gameplan in other Indian cities, too, and is mulling the launch of even smaller stores in some locations, indicated Hornell.
With a planned investment of Rs 6,000 crore by 2030, IKEA aims to meet 25 million people in Maharashtra, providing over 4,000 jobs, of which 50 percent will be for women. The company in 2018 had announced that it would invest Rs 10,500 crore in India overall, but now indicated that the figure might go higher in the country.
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