Woman getting help from IKEA employee in the kitchen department.

IKEA Retail

Reaching people where they are

IKEA Retail is our core business, with IKEA stores in 30 countries – and more on the way, as we expand into new markets.

Every year, we welcome more than 839 million customers into our 374 IKEA stores. And our website IKEA.com saw more than 2.6 billion visits in 2019. Yet we never stop working to improve our services and accessibility for the many people. To meet their expectations, we’re investing in new channels, innovative store formats and digital platforms.

A new IKEA

A rapidly changing world means rapidly changing needs. So, we are also changing. In fact, as part of the biggest transformation in IKEA history, we’re renewing our business model completely.

Every part of our business is being improved – from customer experience to how our company is structured. The aim is to become more convenient and more affordable for our customers, and more sustainable for our planet.

To guide us, we have our Retail Direction: 10 jobs in three years, where we’ve listed the most important jobs we need to do to create a new IKEA:

IKEA planning studio, Tottenham Court Road

Retail Direction: 10 jobs in three years

This journey is guided by our Retail Direction: 10 jobs in three years, which lists the most important jobs we need to do to create a new and better IKEA. It guides our IKEA Retail business and it’s our response to the IKEA Direction, which is set out by the franchisor.

Create a strong position leading from our purpose – let people know what we stand for.

Everything we say and do positions IKEA – from how we meet customers to how we connect to the world around us. In order to better reach the many people in the future and have a positive impact in society, we’re creating a positioning movement like never before.

Create a home furnishing movement.

Home furnishing is the essence of IKEA, central to the IKEA vision and the core of what we do. To create a home furnishing movement, we’ll develop an even deeper understanding of people’s lives at home, their needs, challenges, aspirations and dreams, in every city and market. In the years to come, we’ll empower more of our co-workers to be home furnishing experts and engage with more people in unique, personal and digital ways.

Create a simple and unique digital customer meeting.

We are tapping into the potential of bringing the uniqueness of IKEA to life digitally, together with personalisation and convenience. Our mission is to offer an excellent user experience across all digital channels to make it simple for customers to search, find, choose and buy in just a few clicks. In FY19, we took an important step by launching the new IKEA app.

Create and offer affordable services to make IKEA convenient.

The future of home furnishing, and almost every other business, is about your choice and your way. Our focus is to offer our services in all touchpoints making IKEA accessible to the many. We will expand our fulfilment network and create new partnerships with service providers. We’ll bring products and services to more people when they want them, where they want them – in a sustainable and affordable way. Through this we’ll make shopping at IKEA easy, as well as increase interest in home furnishing, enable a sustainable life and strengthen the emotional connection to the many people.

Creating a new world of IKEA in the city.

Urbanisation is on the rise, and people are moving into cities like never before. Value for time is more and more important, and we’ll be where the many people live, work and socialise. With a digital and fulfilment backbone, we’re finding new ways to meet many more people in cities, enabling them to conveniently access our total offer close to where they are. We will discover new and unique formats that allow people to reach us more easily, including working with our Ingka Centres colleagues to create meeting places of the future. We’ll create an IKEA Retail business that’s relevant to the challenges and needs of people living in big cities. We’ll strengthen the IKEA Brand, co-create new models and services and redefine what it means to be a good neighbour in the city – we create a positive impact on people, society and the environment.

Create the IKEA store of tomorrow – making our stores experience centres for life at home.

The IKEA stores are magical worlds of home furnishing and offer the total IKEA experience, and they’ll continue to be a strong part of our new reality as we transform them into experience centres for life at home. We’ll bring home furnishing inspiration and knowledge to a whole new level and become the best destination for beautiful, smart and sustainable homes. We’ll also make them key components in our fulfilment network as they also can fulfil online orders, which enables us to live up to customer lead time and quality expectations.

Create a people and planet positive IKEA.

We have started the journey to become people and planet positive. Now we’ll go all in and, together with stakeholders across IKEA and society, develop a sustainable business model for home furnishing. We’ll put sustainability at the core of our offer, truly understanding and pre-empting changing customer and societal needs. We’ll co-create sustainable living solutions and circular services with our customers.

Create ‘always on’ growth – offering many more great reasons to visit IKEA.

We need to ensure that every one of us works closely to achieve healthy and sustainable growth. To do so, we’ll have an "always-on" mindset for growth and provide the many people with many more reasons to visit IKEA, through our stores and digital experiences, 365 days a year. We’ll be more responsive and provide customers with more personalised offers, rewards, support or solutions, whenever they have a need for it, in the channels they choose.

Create a simpler and better IKEA designed for the future – with less time planning and more time doing.

A low-price company must also be a low-cost company, and costconsciousness is part of who we are. We’ll work with a holistic cost performance approach to reduce unnecessary costs and build the prerequisites to make investments that create profitable growth as well as reducing costs. Cost performance will focus on small and big initiatives. We’ll build scale and efficiency in customer fulfilment flows, simplify and automate on a global scale, accelerate digital delivery and ensure our strong retail foundations. We also look at efficiencies in marketing, in-house deliveries and procurement. To enable investments in creating a new IKEA, we’ll use our resources in a responsible way with a long-term perspective.

Create a people movement and make our culture and values a living reality – unleashing the potential of us all.

Our customers want to meet engaged, competent and serviceminded co-workers at every IKEA customer meeting point. To make sure that we have the prerequisites to meet our customers, we’ll develop ourselves and lead our business into the future by learning and building new capabilities together. We grow from within, we welcome new talent who share our values and we develop the next generation of leaders. We will unleash the potential of people and go all in on equality – ensuring that Ingka Group is a good example of equality, diversity and inclusion.