Furniture shoppers in Manhattan cannot visit the new IKEA outpost to purchase a bureau or bed to take home. Instead, the showroom is designed to help them picture how the various furniture options available through the company’s website might help them meet their needs, as well as provide a place for them to interact with store personnel to get answers to their questions. That is, rather than a traditional store, IKEA’s New York city-center location mainly functions as a complement to its online channel.
For IKEA, the idea of city-center showrooms continues to grow in appeal. It has opened such showrooms in London and Madrid. If the New York experiment goes well, it plans to open other U.S. showrooms in Washington DC, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Ultimately, it anticipates opening about 30 city center stores.
In most of these stores, the focus will be on solutions for small spaces. People in the heart of densely populated cities often are desperate for space-saving options and innovative storage ideas. For these buyers—and noting predictions that 70 percent of the world’s population will live in a city by the middle of this century—IKEA promises to keep coming up with new and appealing ideas, which it will display to consumers in showrooms, then help them order for delivery to their small residences.
Discussion Questions:
- Why is IKEA locating in urban centers?
- What is the difference between these stores and its suburban stores?
Source: Saabira Chaudhuri, The Wall Street Journal, December 3, 2018