Online contributes over 20 percent of their revenue, as opposed to the industry average of 11 percent, says the Sweden-based global home furnishing brand
Susanne Pulverer, CEO and chief sustainability officer, Ikea India; Image: Neha Mithbawkar for Forbes India
Global home furnishing brand Ikea has recently launched an AI-powered mixed-reality tool called Kreativ. This allows people to turn into an interior designer, get creative and visualise how furnishings will look, and fit in their homes. “Users can dive into a seamless mixed-reality adventure where they get to play interior designer with just a drag-and-drop interface and cutting-edge AI,” says Susanne Pulverer, CEO and chief sustainability officer, Ikea India. Additionally, users can download the design or co-create with family and friends. This helped Ikea transform its online channel from being transactional to experiential. On Monday, the company also announced the introduction of a 365-day exchange and return policy for its consumers, making its shopping experience even more convenient and flexible.
The brand has come a long way—from a tiny business in Älmhult, Sweden—to touching global sales of Є47.6 billion (FY23). Ingvar Kamprad founded Ikea in 1943 at the age of 17, selling household goods like pens, wallets and picture frames. Älmhult, the town where Ikea was founded, is in a remote area of Sweden, and was difficult to reach potential customers in the bigger cities. Due to this, the Ikea catalogue was born in 1951. Kamprad had decided Ikea should sell good furniture at low prices. “Why are beautiful products only made for a few buyers? It must be possible to offer good design and function at low prices,” he said. Close to 80 years later, this core value of affordability remains.
Ikea has been sourcing for various product categories from India for over four decades now. But, on the retail front, the Sweden-based company opened its first store in Hyderabad, in 2018. Currently, in addition to its online presence, it has a total of four offline stores. The next large format stores are likely to open in Gurugram and Noida. Earlier this year, Ikea India tied up with logistics provider Rhenus Group in India, to support the company’s ecommerce expansion in Delhi. “We are prioritising the metro cities first for offline stores, and catering to the smaller towns via online,” says Pulverer. After Delhi, Ikea is looking at opening stores in Chennai and Pune.
Ikea’s online business is growing strong, along with its offline stores. “Online contributes over 20 percent to the total revenue. This is much better as compared to the industry average, which is 11 percent,” notes Adosh Sharma, country commercial manager, Ikea India. Going forward, the company will continue focussing on the omnichannel front. India has seen close to 180 million people so far in their stores, and 2.5 million loyal IKEA family members, over the six years. “Over the last six years, we've taken a lot of learnings. We've understood that India is a market where access and reach is very important,” he adds.
Hence, omnichannel is key for Ikea, where online becomes our first point of entry. “We want Ikea to be either 30 minutes or one click away,” says Bhavana Jaiswal, head of ecommerce, Ikea India. Interestingly, in most markets, Jaiswal explains, “Ikea enters with a physical store first, and then moves into ecommerce. But given how tech-savvy India is, we decided to go digital first—and it has worked well.”