If the thought of wandering through a giant maze of housewares and furniture and inevitably end up fighting with your significant other/roommate over which dish rack to buy strikes fear into the very depths of your online shopper’s soul, IKEA’s recent shift in strategy is aimed at attracting shoppers like you.
The Swedish retailer known for its huge, sprawling stores located outside major cities said on Tuesday that it had opened more click-and-collect locations in fiscal 2016 than it did traditional stores, The Wall Street Journal reports. All told, IKEA opened 19 new click-and-collect locations — up from the paltry three it opened in the previous fiscal year — and 12 traditional stores.
The company is now using these 22 click-and-collect locations to figure out how many and what kinds of products it should keep in stock, and analyze how certain locations do.
“This is part of the total conversion of IKEA from a traditional brick-and-mortar retailer to a multichannel retailer with the stores at the heart,” Chief Executive Peter Agnefjäll told the WSJ.
IKEA’s click-and-collect points are much smaller than its suburban behemoths, averaging about 20,000 square feet. The concept works pretty much how it sounds like it would: customers order products online and then pick up their purchases in person. And for those who only visit the store for the grub, some locations even include a cafe that offers traditional IKEA fare like meatballs and salmon.
IKEA’s gamble on online shoppers seems to be paying off so far, as the company reported sales in the last 12 months were up 7.1% from a year before, while same-store sales climbed by 4.8%.
IKEA Opens More Click-and-Collect Stores as Customers Move Online [The Wall Street Journal]
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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