As Ikea opened the doors to its first stand-alone restaurant on the UK high street, the ConsumerX 2024 report looks at how the furniture giant is responding to its customers’ changing shopping needs.
In recent years, Ikea has seen changes in the way that its shoppers want to buy from it, so it has responded accordingly. These changes extend from the way that customers want to buy and take fulfilment of products, through to ensuring its products are designed more sustainably.
As click and collect sales have risen – by 48% in its 2023 financial year – Ikea has expanded the number of places where shoppers can pick up their sales. It is opening more than 70 mobile collection points through a partnership with UK supermarket Tesco. ConsumerX research suggests that collection matters to shoppers around the world. 67.1% of those questioned in 14 key ecommerce markets say collection is very important (22.9%) or important (44.2%) to them.
As shoppers have returned, post-pandemic, to buying both instore and online, the retailer has also experimented with new city centre stores, locating them in sites including London’s Hammersmith and Brighton. Shoppers here can browse a curated range instore before ordering for home delivery or to collect. In 2023, the retailer reported a million new visits to Ikea’s UK stores – up 2.2% against 2022 – while online sales grew by 19%, accounting for 38.5% of sales.
Ikea has set itself challenging sustainability goals by aiming to be a climate positive business by 2030. In order to achieve this, it will reduce more greenhouse gas emissions than it generates across its value chain, while at the same time growing its business. Steps already taken include shifting to 100% renewable electricity use in its stores and distribution centres, generating some of that energy through its Dumfries wind farm.
Meanwhile, the Ikea BuyBack & Re-sell scheme gave a new life to 52,380 pieces of furniture in its 2023 full-year – 187% more than in 2022. Peter Jelkeby, CEO and chief sustainability officer at Ikea UK & Ireland, says, in Ikea’s 2023 full-year UK results statement, that the retailer plans to continue on this course. “Guided by the foundations set out 80 years ago,” he says, “we’ll continue building a business that contributes to better homes for our customers, better lives for co-workers and communities and a better planet for all.”
Ikea’s willingness to take action chimes with ConsumerX research that finds that 75.7% of shoppers questioned in 14 countries around the world say they strongly agree (29.3%) or agree (46.4%) that they want retailers to be ecologically sustainable. 76.2% also say that a business or product’s ecological impact should be clearer.
Each year, more than 40,000 consumers from over 20 key ecommerce markets around the world respond to ConsumerX surveys that are translated into a dozen languages.
The aim of this report is to answer important questions about how shoppers are buying differently, as well as to reveal the main factors driving this change, what we might expect in the future and how retailers and brands can plan for that.
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