Swedish furniture chain Ikea wants to launch a web shop and a smaller store concept in Belgium, which will mainly serve as pick-up locations for online orders. Ikea announced these measures in the wake of good sales reports in its fiscal year 2016.
Adjust to customer habits
Currently, Ikea only has an online presence in 14 of its 28 markets, taking its time to launch web shops in other countries. “There was not a great sense of urgency for Belgium anyway. The urbanization of the region means that our stores cover a large area and Belgium is not exactly a frontrunner when it comes to eCommerce”, spokesperson Annelies Nauwelaerts told local newspaper De Standaard.
Ikea has also launched other types of stores abroad, which usually contain a selection of the product range and mainly serve as a pick-up point for the online orders. The company will apparently open at least one similar store in Belgium, but it refuses to say where and when it will arrive. The company managed to postpone its online sales for quite a while, but now realizes it cannot lag behind any further. “Society is evolving and we need to adjust and cater to the needs of our customers.”
Ikea also targets a 50 billion euro turnover by 2020 and online sales will have to contribute to reach that number. Only this week, the chain announced that sales went up 7.1% to 34.2 billion euro, while online turnover even grew 28 % to almost 1.5 billion euro..
