IKEA continues its investment in planning studios to get closer to people in a dozen Swedish cities. Already this autumn, IKEA will open its next unit on Kungsgatan, in the middle of Gothenburg. The purpose is to reach more customers and make it easier to get help with planning, decorating and ordering products from the range.
In mid-June, IKEA announced its plans to open so-called planning studios in dozens of cities around the country. Norrköping will be the first city out with a studio at Ingelsta shopping center. This will make IKEA more accessible in places where there is currently no department store. The new formats will complement the already established department stores, e-commerce and IKEA’s digital solutions.
“People today visit IKEA for several different reasons. Therefore, we want to give our customers more options to visit us depending on what they need. In our large department stores, we have gathered everything IKEA has to offer, but when customers want help with planning a kitchen or ordering a smart wardrobe solution, the new stores give us the opportunity to get closer to people in their everyday lives where they live, work and move,” said Reza Shomali, Development Manager at IKEA Sweden.
In the smaller formats that IKEA calls planning studios, customers can meet home furnishing experts and get personal service for planning their homes or ordering products from the entire range. All products are then delivered to where the customer prefers, but no products can be taken home immediately.
The stores will be located in popular shopping malls and shopping districts. The ambition is to open in a dozen Swedish cities already in 2021. The new format is under development, which means that the new units are initially temporary. Depending on how the solution is received by customers locally, both the choice of store format and location are evaluated before IKEA decides on a more long-term establishment.
The first to test the new format will be Norrköping, where IKEA will open in Ingelsta shopping mall in September. Now IKEA is taking the next step and also opening at Avenyn in Gothenburg.
“We are so happy to get closer to our customers in Gothenburg and hope that they are as curious as we are to explore a new way of meeting. We look forward to sharing our knowledge of life at home in a new place and make it easier for more people to take part in our home decor. At the same time, in this innovation project we want to listen to and learn from our customers so that we can continue to develop our store formats together,” said Anders Henricsson, Department Store Manager at IKEA Bäckebol.
