Ikea made its India debut with a 400,000 sq. ft. store spread on 13 acres in Hyderabad in August. It is very well known that small stores cater to most of the customer’s demands. Ikea is experimenting with 30 smaller stores in order to address the same.
The formats in the future will be as small as 15,000 sq. ft. digital-heavy “planning points” and others formats will be in the range of 50,000 to 100,000 sq. ft. within city centres around the world.
At present, Ikea believes in opening outlets ranging from 400,000 sq. ft. which are mostly located in the outskirts of a city.
Ikea wanted to step faster in the digital innovations where they could meet their customers digitally on their cell phones and the nearby City Centres where people lived.
They invested and developed their business to meet the needs of the customers as their behaviour changed rapidly.
The first small store has opened in Paris and the second one is being rolled out in Shanghai.
Ikea plans to have some small format outlets in India as well. The first truncated version is expected to come up in Mumbai where the world’s largest single brand retailer is also hoping to open a large 400,000 sq. ft. store in Navi Mumbai next year.
