As Ikea trials new pick-up lockers at Tesco locations, a company profile in the newly published RetailX Europe Top1000 360° report looks at the homewares retailer’s focus on convenience, value and sustainability.
The global business, which sells through localised websites to markets across Europe and beyond and is ranked Elite in the Europe Top1000 2024, emphasised the importance of these aims when it reported its latest full-year results.
Inter Ikea group CEO Jon Abrahamsson Ring said at the time: “In challenging times when inflation is high and many people struggle with the cost of living, the need for home furnishing solutions at affordable prices is high. This is where we will continue to do what Ikea has always done – putting customers’ affordability first. Looking further ahead, the three main opportunities we see for Ikea are to become even more affordable, more accessible and more sustainable.”
Steps to improve its sustainability, said Ikea, included developing bio-based glue and a global wood supply chain as it looked to reduce its environmental footprint.
Ikea operates through 12 Ikea franchises, coordinated by the global Inter Ikea group, which reported that its franchisees had made retail sales of €47.6bn (+6.6% on 2022) in the full year to August 2023. Some, 74% of sales were generated instore, 23% online and 3% through services.
The Inter Ikea Group itself reported net profit of €1.6bn on revenues of €29.1bn. During the year, Ikea reported 860mn visits to its stores, up from 822mn in 2022. It saw 3.8bn online visitors, down from 4.3bn the previous year, as shoppers returned instore after Covid-19 restrictions were lifted.
More than 70 new Ikea shops opened during the year, most being small format stores such as city centre shops and plan and order points. These included its first New Zealand store and one in the centre of Copenhagen designed to respond to the changing behaviour of urban shoppers by being more accessible to cyclists.
Ingvar Kamprad founded Ikea in Almhult, Sweden in 1943 when he was just 17. He started by selling imported products before adding furniture to the range in 1948. The business started to sell online in 2000, when it launched Swedish and Danish websites. It marked its 80th anniversary last year.
Ikea’s strategic themes are reflected on its websites. Visitors to Ikea’s Swedish website can sign up to its Ikea Family loyalty club and benefit from member prices and offers, while its secondhand department appears in its top navigation. As well as this, shoppers can tune into live shopping events and engage via Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube and X.
The Ikea profile is one of nine in our first RetailX Europe Top1000 360° report. This report brings together two strands of RetailX research.
The first is the Top1000, now in its ninth year of ranking ecommerce and multichannel retailers by performance. The second is the more recent 360° reports, which explore markets in the round, from the economic context for retail to retailer performance and how shoppers buy, or would like to buy.
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