Ikea Expects Five Million Visitors At Its Mumbai Store In Next One Year
The Swedish furniture giant plans to open two smaller format stores in Mumbai over the next 12 months.
Ikea will open its second store in India in Mumbai on Friday, where it expects footfalls of over five million over the next 12 months.
The Swedish flat-pack furniture giant also plans to open two smaller format stores in Mumbai in next 12 months to be more accessible to customers within city limits. That’s because its 530,000-sqft store is on the city’s outskirts of Thane-Belapur road in Navi Mumbai.
In comparison, its first store in India—which was opened in Hyderabad two years ago—has seen around six million visitors so far, according to the company.
Mumbai will also be the first Indian city where the company will launch an omnichannel shopping facility for customers. Customers can not only order home furnishings online, but can also order goods online and collect it from the store.
“Our customers are using multiple opportunities to shop at Ikea… We’re looking to offer the customer a convenient way to shop… Online will be 20-30% of our revenue,” Peter Betzel, chief executive of Ikea India, told BloombergQuint in an interview.
The Swedish furniture major may further cut prices to make its products more affordable to Indians. In August, the company cut prices of its top-selling products by 20-30%. Ikea sources 20% of its products it sells at its stores within the country from within the country and aims to ramp up the sourcing to 40-50%, Betzel said.
Ikea is expected to launch its third store in Bengaluru over the next 12-14 months followed by Delhi over the next few years.
Due to the pandemic, interest in home furnishing has been increasing, Betzel said. Customer interest has been high for items that go into the making of a home office, and sofas, items to make bedrooms more comfortable, he said.
In 2013, Ikea got the Foreign Investment Promotion Board’s nod to invest Rs 10,500 crore in India and so far the company has already invested Rs 7,000 crore, Preet Dhupar, chief financial officer of Ikea India, told reporters earlier today.
Watch the conversation with Ikea India CEO Peter Betzel: