IKEA Expands Delhi Presence With Second Saket Store

Synopsis: IKEA India will open its second Delhi city store at DLF Avenue, Saket, on July 30, while advancing large-format retail and mixed-use projects in Gurugram and Noida to strengthen its NCR expansion strategy.

This is being done through opening of the second city format store of IKEA India in Delhi, which will be located in DLF Avenue, Saket. The store will cover an area of 30,000 sq. ft and is expected to be opened on July 30. This will be yet another step in the direction of expanding the Swedish furniture brand in North India as part of its long-term plans. This follows the efforts of the company in developing its large format retail centers in Gurugram and Noida. 

This new Saket store will target mostly the people from South and Central parts of Delhi and neighboring areas via the urban city store concept. This will stock almost 3,000 products for furniture in homes, where around 1,400 of these products will be available for take-away by customers, and the rest will be delivered to their homes.

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City-store strategy forms one of the channels within the overall Omni channel strategy of IKEA, which includes combining traditional brick-and-mortar retail with online shopping to enhance accessibility in crowded urban environments. The smaller city stores will enable the firm to be closer to consumers through the bigger destination stores.

IKEA made entry into the Delhi-NCR region via their e-commerce website before venturing into physical retail stores. The company sees this region as one of its key focus areas of growth because of the large population, growing disposable income, and increasing need for low-cost home furnishings.

In addition to the Saket outlet, IKEA is also putting in significant investments in the planned development of Ingka Centres in Gurugram and Noida. This would entail the integration of large IKEA format stores along with shopping, entertainment, restaurants, offices, and community centres that would serve millions of consumers in NCR.

Gurugram and Noida developments form an integral part of IKEA’s long-term India development plan. The 180,000 sq. ft. central distribution center in Gurugram helps boost the efficiency of the supply chain, besides enabling e-commerce activities and future expansion of the retail format in North India.

Another example is that IKEA has stated that they plan on investing nearly ₹11,000 crore in the Indian market by the year 2030. This shows the faith that they have in the long-term prospects of the Indian market for them.

India has become one of the key markets for IKEA's expansion. In addition to expanding its retail footprint, the company has also focused on increasing sourcing from India and developing closer relationships with Indian manufacturers in line with the government's "Make in India" policy.

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As industry analysts have observed, the amalgamation of city store presence, e-commerce activities, and destination retail stores helps IKEA gain a wider range of customers, while also allowing IKEA to cope with different shopping styles in India. Urban stores will be more convenient for shoppers, and large stores will keep providing customers with the full-fledged IKEA experience.

The launch of the Saket store is yet another milestone in the IKEA story of expansion in North India. With its expansion strategy based on the concept of compact urban stores as well as larger-scale integrated developments in Gurugram and Noida, it is ideally placed to emerge as a market leader in India's organised furniture sector while also getting one step closer to its omnichannel retail model.