Sweden’s Ikea Group has opened a compact concept store in the UAE city of Al Ain in conjunction with its Emirates partner the Al-Futtaim Group.
The new store is just 2500 sqm in size, significantly smaller than the full scale Ikea destination stores. It stocks about 2500 lines – one third of the 7500 current stock range available online.
Al Ain, with a population of 600,000, is the sixth largest city in the UAE.
Al-Futtaim Group plans the concept to act as a customer ordering and collection point, supporting full scale stores in Dubai Festival City and Yas Island, Abu Dhabi. It also supports the Ikea UAE website, allowing customers to order items from the larger stores and collect them from the Al Ain store later.
“The customer ordering and collection point is yet another channel bringing the Ikea brand even closer to the residents of Al Ain and surrounding areas,” said John Kersten, Ikea UAE, Qatar, Egypt and Oman MD.
“Historically, the UAE is an extremely dynamic market that adapts well to new formats.”
The new store format is also being trialled in Spain and Canada.
The Swedish retailer started rolling out the concept stores out in March, with the first located in Spain’s Pamplona. Another two stores are due to open in Canada before the end of the year.
Source: insideretail.asia
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