The €15 million store at Kamala Mills, popular for its
upmarket cafes and pubs, will house a restaurant and offer personal shopping,
remote planning, and home deliveries, the company’s India market and expansion
manager Per Hornell said.
Ikea is also planning another such city store in Mumbai for
a 2022 opening, Hornell said in an interview.
Ikea already has a large format store in adjoining Navi
Mumbai, and another in Hyderabad. While the large format stores are roughly
500,000 sq.ft and located in the outskirts of large cities, the city stores are
much smaller at 50,000-100,000 sq.ft. The retailer is also scouting for similar
opportunities in Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR.
“Bangalore is another priority city. We are looking for
opportunities by ourselves, and with the developers for similar city store
formats. A city that we’re really passionate about is Delhi,” Hornell
said.
The Mumbai city store, spread across three floors, will
stock 6,500 products, mostly smaller furniture items and accessories. Of these,
2,200 products will be available for takeaway and the rest will be
home-delivered.
Ikea has been pivoting to smaller stores in top global
cities such as Shanghai, Moscow, New York and Paris, as it aims to move closer
to shoppers and drive more sales.
Globally, Ikea plans to open 50 new smaller-format stores in
top cities, the retailer said last year.
Ikea had earlier said that Mumbai is prioritized for “fast
expansion”. By 2030, the retailer has outlined investments of ₹6,000 crore
in the western state. It started with online sales in the state, which was
followed by the Navi Mumbai store. Since its launch in Navi Mumbai in December,
Ikea has seen 400,00 visitors. However, the store has been hit by recurring
closures due to the second covid-19 wave.
While online sales are growing, Ikea is still on
a “journey” to scaling it and is working on building capacity to shorten
delivery timelines, Hornell said. Courtesy: www.livemint.com
