Ikea wants to invest heavily in its Chinese store network. The fact that many Chinese like to visit the stores to take a nap, is alright for the Swedes.
Visitors are always good
Chinese customers who want to take a nap in an Ikea store are a well-documented phenomenon, even up to the point that a store in Beijing saw it necessary to ban sleeping in its beds altogether – a plan that was quickly dropped as staff grew tired of having to chase people out of their beds. “We are very happy to welcome many customers in our stores, for using our stores to sleep as well“, Anna Pawlak-Kuliga (president of IKEA China) said to Sixthtone.
Pawlak-Kuliga also explained Ikea’s latest expansion plans in China: the Swedish chain plans to invest 1.2 billion euros in the world’s most populous country in 2020 alone: the largest investment ever in the country since the Swedes entered the market in 1988. Today the chain has 27 stores, two experience centres and 11 distribution hubs in 21 Chinese cities. Next year, four more stores and 3,000 new vacancies will be opened – on top of further investment in e-commerce.
