Ikea has finally come to Bengaluru and citizens’ response to it has been overwhelming. On June 25, the first weekend since the launch, thousands flocked to the store in Nagasandra.
Traffic jams occurred as residents drove to the store in huge numbers.
"All roads leading to @ikea Bangalore, is it!? What terrible traffic," said a Twitter user named Sambit Dash.
Another wrote: "Anyone who is coming to Ikea Bangalore, please use metro. Please avoid car. Make your life easy."
Outside the Ikea store, there were long queues.
Visitors had to wait for up to three hours to be able to enter the store.
As many as 25,000 people went to Ikea on Saturday, some Twitter users estimated. Amid rising COVID-19 cases, many expressed concern about the crowd.
"PSA: If you are planning to visit the new #IKEA Bangalore, don't," a user named Vijay Sankaran said. "Covid cases are rising, so wait for rush to settle."
Another user blamed Ikea for poor crowd management. "Registration-based entries to limit the crowd could have helped you," they said.
Ikea's store in Bengaluru opened for customers on June 22. It is the Swedish furniture retailer's third flagship store in India. The other two are in Hyderabad and Mumbai.
The store in Bengaluru, spanning 4,60,000 square feet, is the largest in India. It offers a massive range of home furnishing products and hosts a 1000-seater restaurant offering Indian and Swedish delicacies.
The Bengaluru facility also has a children's play area called "Småland".
IKEA India CEO Suzanne Pulverer told Moneycontrol that the company will concentrate on local sourcing to make its products affordable.
Read: IKEA’s Bengaluru store, its fourth in India, aims to source 50% of products locally
“Everyone is impacted by what has happened in the world with the pandemic, and then we have disruptions because everything is connected," she said. "So yes, we are seeing a lot of pressure, on prices, on costs… We are trying to absorb and we are also adjusting our prices so that we can keep the balance between affordability and margins."
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