Swedish home furnishing retailer Ikea is all set to launch ecommerce operations in the country, beginning with Mumbai followed by Hyderabad and Pune, a top company official said recently. Ikea India Chief Executive Officer Peter Betzel said the outlet witnessed one million purchases from over four million footfalls. He also said the company was looking at various channels including smaller formats and customer meeting points, to reach customers. “India is a long-term commitment for Ikea and we will focus on fast expansion multi-channel approach. In the coming years, our goal is to meet 100 mn customers with our beautiful and affordable home furnishing offer to make everyday life at home better and brighter,” Betzel said.
“Our next destination is Mumbai where we will soon start our e-commerce, enabling us to meet many more customers followed by Hyderabad and Pune going online,” he said without giving timelines. Ikea had earlier said it invested over Rs. 800 cr in the Hyderabad outlet, which includes an in-house 1000-seater restaurant. The store was opened on August 9, 2018. The restaurant served one million each of frozen yoghurt, veggi balls and chicken balls during the past one year, he said adding the outlet has over 3.50 lakh Ikea family membership registrations.
“We are normally attractive for the fun day out for the whole family. We know that on an average 3 to 4 people as a family visiting us (our store) so you can say then it is more than 1 mn buyers,” he said. On the upcoming Mumbai store, he said the construction work was going on there. On the breakeven of the Hyderabad store, Betzel said they were looking at the long term commencement to India and not predicting when the operations will become profitable.
Asked about the company’s plans to roll out smaller format outlets, the executive said, “We are in transformation. We are now looking at real accessibility with online stores and different store formats.” “So we will have many more product meeting places with different formats, not stores only, but online and meeting places in the cities with big stores formats. That’s how we are transforming Ikea. Because the world is changing. We also have to adapt to that.” Ikea had earlier said the Hyderabad store was the first of 25 such outlets planned to be set up in India by 2025. In 2013, IKEA received nod from the government to invest Rs. 10,500 cr in single-brand retail.
