Ikea plans to expand its ecommerce offer

Ikea Group has plans to have an online store up and running in every country where it has stores. This has got to happen within the next few years, after Ikea had a yearlong pause on the online channel. But Ikea still has to solve a big ecommerce problem as it is particularly successful with generating extra sales in its offline stores.

At the moment, Ikea offers online shopping in 13 countries. But over the last twelve months, there was no new online store opened. But that’s about to change, as the Swedish furniture retailer wants to have an online presence in all 27 countries in which it has stores.

This is what Ikea Group announced, at the same it said the company had seen a 5.9% increase in revenue to 28.7 billion euros for the period between September 1 2013 to August 31 this year. China was the fastest growing market, while North America continued to perform well and Europe continued to improve. ““We continue to see positive signs in consumer spending and it’s a great joy to report growth in almost all our markets, not least in the challenging markets in Southern Europe”, says President and CEO Peter Agnefjäll.

IKEA’s ecommerce branch grows strong
The ecommerce branch of Ikea showed strong growth, while the numbers of visitors also grew. According to Agnefjäll Ikea is becoming more accessible “by continuing to improve our existing stores, by opening new stores and by expanding our ecommerce service and in-store-pick and delivery service”.

Ikea and ecommerce. It still seems like a tough combination. Since it opened its website Ikea.com in 1997 the Swedish company has been very conservative with its online presence. It slowly embraced the online channel several years ago, but is now investing heavily. But Ikea is not your average company, as it relies heavily on consumers driving to its out-of-town outlets and collecting purchases themselves from warehouses.

Go visit an Ikea store and you soon get lost thanks to its maze-like structure. And while you were only there to pick up a chair for in your living room, you inevitably end up with much, much more in your shopping cart. These cheap impulse products are a key proportion of their sales. And that habit is hard to duplicate online, as there are less impulse purchases when you are visiting an online store with a clear website navigation.

By the way, did you know the acronym IKEA is made up of the initials of founder Ingvar Kamprad (IK), Elmtaryd (E), the family farm where he was born, and the nearby village Agunnaryd (A)?