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Mon, May 11, 2020 – 12:02 PM
SWEDISH dumplings and home furnishings from Ikea will arrive in western Singapore, when the retailer opens a store in the Jem Mall in 2021.
This will be its first small-store concept in Southeast Asia, whereby the Swedish home goods giant becomes a tenant inside a shopping center instead of establishing another of its iconic blue warehouse buildings.
The outlet at the suburban Jurong East shopping center will be spread over three floors and will span some 6,500 square meters or nearly 70,000 square feet (square feet). It will be the third Ikea store in Singapore.
The newer point of sale will not have a playground or built-in warehouse. Products will be organized in a single department, rather than displayed separately according to each central area of the home.
Despite the smaller format, the full range of Ikea products will continue to be available at Jem, which will also house the retailer’s restaurant offering its popular Swedish meatballs, fried chicken wings and sustainable seafood.
Jaap Doornbos, Ikea Retail Director for Singapore and Vietnam, said: “This store will bring us closer to millions of customers.” Outside of Southeast Asia, there are only a few Ikea outlets with a similar small-store concept in the world, he added.
In Singapore, Ikea’s two blue box stores in Tampines and Alexandra attract close to seven million visits a year, said Sebastian Hylving, director of property and expansion for Ikea in Southeast Asia and Mexico.
The Covid-19 situation has renewed interest in making home life more comfortable, functional and sustainable, and Ikea offers such solutions at affordable prices, Hylving noted. “We see a bright future for our store in Jem,” he added.
Hylving has signed a lease with the owner of Jem, the Lendlease property and infrastructure group.
Ng Hsueh Ling, managing director of Lendlease in Singapore and chief investment officer in Asia, said the company hopes to bring a “market-first lifestyle concept” to its buyers.
“We continually rejuvenate our leasing mix and bring them new experiences,” he added.
Ikea’s announcement comes days after Robinsons Singapore said it will close its Jem store in late August this year. The department store operator occupies four floors with a total of 85,000 square feet within Jem.
Some of its employees will be transferred to other Robinsons points of sale and retail brands under its parent Al-Futtaim Group, such as Marks & Spencer, Zara and Massimo Dutti. The rest of the staff will be helped to secure a new job within Jem.
Robinsons said The Business Times Last week, competition from the rapidly increasing number of suburban shopping malls had made having multiple large-scale department stores in Singapore unsustainable “long before” the coronavirus pandemic.
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