Everything You Need To Know About IKEA’s First Store In India

World’s largest furniture retailer, IKEA has set up its shop in India and it is nothing short of wonderland. Spread over an area of 13-acre in Hyderabad, it is located in Hi-Tech City and is open from 10 AM to 11 PM. IKEA plans to open 25 stores in India and this is the first one which opened in August 2018. Ikea had announced its plan to expand in India in 2012 but took six years to start its functioning.

Here are few interesting facts about IKEA’s first outing in India-

• Ikea is planning to open 25 stores in India by 2025. It took 12 years of rigorous planning to make its debut in world’s largest consumer market. The company is planning to open large and small format stores in cities with a population of more than a million.

• There are over 7,500 varieties of products on display with over 1,000 products priced less than Rs 200. In fact, the team visited over 1,000 homes with varied income level to understand needs and lifestyle in order to finalise the varieties of home furnishing.

• Around 20 per cent of the products sold in IKEA are locally sourced while 1,000 products are made in India, as per India’s FDI norms.

• Ikea is expecting six million footfalls in a year. The biggest chunk is expected because of its restaurant business. It is sharp contrast to other countries where customers flock in to buy its ready-to-assemble products

• Ikea has 1,000 seater restaurant in Hyderabad store, biggest in the world. The food is sourced from vendors, mainly women-led social enterprises

• Ikea is soon going to launch its e-commerce operations from Mumbai and will service to cities where it can deliver and assemble the products. Bengaluru, Gurgaon, Ahmedabad, Surat, Pune, Chennai and Kolkata are other cities in pipeline.

• Ikea is planning to invest Rs 10,500 crore in India out of which Rs 1,000 crore will be spent on each store. The Hyderabad IKEA employs 950 co-workers directly and 1,500 indirectly. The brand targets to employ 2,300 people per store.

• The company, currently has 403 stores in 49 countries and has been sourcing its products from India for its global stores for more than 30 years.