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Swedish sales amounted to SEK 18 billion during September last year up to and including August 2020. That is 200 million SEK more than in the previous financial year. Almost 3 billion came from online sales, which increased by 40 percent.
– The pandemic forced us to navigate without a map, customer buying behaviors changed almost overnight. There was much more pickup of products outside of department stores and we had to adjust to be able to make more home deliveries, says Lena Herder, director of Ikea Sweden.
She continues:
– Kitchen planning has been done in the past for the most part physically, but it has proven to work very well digitally as well. Overall, I think the transition to more shopping and digital meetings will survive the pandemic, and then we need to follow the customer.
Sweden is one of the few countries where Ikea has been open all the time. So a 1 percent increase in sales is pretty slim, isn’t it?
– No, I don’t think so, 200 million is a relatively large amount. Please note that our restaurants have been closed for several months, it is not possible to download them digitally. In Haparanda, visits have been cut in half due to the closure of the Finnish border, Uddevalla department stores have been heavily affected by fewer Norwegians.
In February, just before the pandemic In earnest, Ikea launched a five-year investment of SEK 1.7 billion in the Stockholm area. Kungens Kurva’s 55-year-old department store was to be renovated, the Barkarby store was expanded, three mini-department stores and a new “concept store” were to be launched. That would provide 500 new jobs.
– All that remains, we have not had to brake. However, we have not yet hired, because it is not entirely clear where and when we will open the new stores, says Lena Herder.
Swedish operations take place within the Ingka Group, the part of Ikea’s sphere that accounts for 90 percent of global sales. For a few weeks this spring, 300 of its 400 department stores and stores were closed. This is reflected in the financial statements of the most recent financial year, where sales decreased by the equivalent of SEK 16 billion, to SEK 368 billion.
Also read: Ikea opens second-hand store in Eskilstuna
