Swedish furniture giant Ikea would reportedly look to roll out more outlets of its smaller city center store format, after it saw a positive response to the first outlet in London, said sources familiar with the matter. Ikea’s smaller store concept allows customers to discuss home décor plans and browse items without the need for visiting stores located outside their town.
Javier Quinones, the company’s UK boss, called the London shop a learning experiment but said its success indicated the format could expand to other cities across the UK It forms a part of Ikea’s wider UK expansion after another year of achieving growth in sales, as the company recently disclosed its UK revenues in the year to August 31 had increased by 5.9% to £1.96 billion.
Sources further inform that Ikea had opened two new large-format outlets in Exeter and Sheffield during the period, raising its total number in UK to 21. The company has been investing large amount of capital in online, logistics and distribution for cutting its home delivery times to three-to-four-days, from the current one-to-two weeks.
Speaking on these investments, Mr. Quinones said it was not in response to Amazon or other retailer but was due to changing consumer demands. The small store experiment was part of this change and Ikea will trial the format, called Planning Studios, in New York, Riyadh and Shanghai as well, since more people are living in cities now, he added.
Records show that Ikea had registered a 9 percent increase in the sales of home decorations during the year, while living room seating sales surged 8 percent. Mr. Quinones mentioned that the company has been working on contingency plans before Brexit. The company imports a major chunk of its products and the plunge in the value of pound over the past two years had affected its margins