Ikea has not only left the pandemic behind, but is outpacing the 2019 numbers, when the coronavirus was still unknown to the common people.
The data released on October 14 is eloquent and shows that the marketing strategy devised by the group of Swedish origin is brilliant.
According to information from Stockholm, Inter Ikea, one of the holding companies that owns the franchise of the brand that manufactures and sells the world’s largest furniture, reported record annual retail sales of 41.950 million euros, just over 49,000 million dollars.
The other, Ingka Group, which has most of the stores and e-commerce operations, said separately that its retail sales increased 6 percent in the same fiscal year, to 37.5 billion euros (almost 44 billion euros). Dollars).
That was two percent higher than pre-pandemic levels, Ingka’s chief executive, Jesper brodin.
This extraordinary result was achieved despite the “container crisis” affecting global supply chains. The cause of Ikea’s very good numbers: that homebound consumers spent much more to maintain and improve their homes.
E-commerce for the fiscal year to August from Inter Ikea grew by 72 percent to represent 25 percent of total retail sales.
Ikea’s global marketing strategy is broad and multi-pronged.
On the one hand, for example, it is testing new store designs that change the format of showrooms with designs that are far from the classics.
It is one of several strategies you are exploring to keep selling “physical” as you adapt to e-commerce.
A Shanghai store, for example, was renovated to test what the brand calls the “store format of the future.” It is a space where visitors can spend hours doing other things, besides shopping.
Along with the showroom and small goods store, there is a space with armchairs and tables where the brand expects consumers to hang out with friends.
There is also a restaurant offering healthy menus made with sustainably sourced products and a “Maker’s Hub” where employees help customers repair old furniture and build new ones.
Ikea opened its first store in Mexico and is exploring new cities and more countries in Latin America to land. It has a memorandum of understanding signed in 2018 with Falabella, the retail giant of Chilean origin and with a strong presence in the region.