IKEA set to open first store in Navi Mumbai, focus on affordable solutions

Home furnishings retailer IKEA India will open its second store in the country on December 18, Friday. Located on the Thane-Belapur Road in Navi Mumbai, the new IKEA store is sprawled across a whopping 5.3 lakh sq. ft, the size of ten football fields.

The store will have 7,000 home furnishing products, of which 1,000 will be sourced locally from India.

"Mumbai is one of our priority markets in India. We have been present online in Mumbai since early 2019 and soon the many people of Mumbai will be able to shop at our fantastic IKEA store," said Peter Betzel, CEO and Chief Sustainability Officer, IKEA India.

"We are expecting to see over five million visitors in 2021, which is a large number in itself. But in a mega city such as Mumbai, five million visitors is only scratching the surface of the potential in the city," said Per Hornell Country Market & Expansion Manager at IKEA India.

Two smaller format stores located in the heart of Mumbai are also on the cards, and will be opened in 2021. The city centre stores are to provide additional convenience and accessibility to the people of Mumbai so they don't have to travel long distances to buy IKEA products, adds Hornell.

Mumbai will continue to be a focus area for the Swedish retailer. "In the next decade we plan to invest close to about Rs 6,000 crores in different formats in Mumbai. So that is the magnitude of investments that we are actually talking about," says Kavitha Rao, Country Commercial Manager , IKEA India.  Since the home furnishings retailer entered India, it has brought close to Rs 10,500 crores in investment.

There is a lot more focus on affordability too. "Affordability is one of the focus areas at IKEA... but when it comes to India the take on affordability is even deeper, because we see that the spend on home furnishing in India is far lesser than what it is, let's say, in Europe," says Rao.

She adds that they now have almost 1,000 products which are below Rs 200. "In the context of the pandemic, affordability has become even more important. All of us have become even more conscious when it comes to spending, and we have challenged ourselves even more to create new low prices and solutions that are much easier on the wallet."

To provide a safe shopping experience and social distancing, visitors will have to make a prior registration on the website and they will then be allotted a day and time slot to visit the store. This will also help the firm cap the number of shoppers in the store.  

IKEA India, part of Ingka Group opened its first retail store in Hyderabad in August 2018, followed by online stores in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Pune.

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