Throughout 2012 IKEA has invested £30 million in improving its store and online customer experience. It was a costly strategy, but it seems to be paying off for the retailer as sales are up.
The main aim of the investment was to improve the experience its customers have both online and offline. Warrington received £1 million to redesign its Market Hall; whilst Birmingham got a whopping £7.5 million to increase the size of its store by 2500 sq. m. Edinburgh spent £5.3 million on a new warehouse.
£15 million was spent across all stores to reduce the price of ‘PAX’ range, which is one of their most popular products. £4.7 million was spent reducing the costs of home delivery from in-store shopping, whilst a further £2.5 million was spent on redesigning the bedroom showrooms across all stores, to give customers a more homely feel.
IKEA also spent £3.3 million on solar PV roof panels, which is in line with the company’s sustainable strategy to convert all light bulbs to LED ones by 2016.
Changes were also made to the website, with the launch of a mobile friendly version, so people can easily browse IKEA’s products on the go. 1500 new products were also added to the website, giving customers a wider range of choice.
The changes mentioned above have helped grow the company’s like-for-like sales to £1.23 billion, an increase of 6.3 per cent. Online sales were also up by a staggering 24.9 per cent, which was probably helped by the new ‘Pick and Delivery’ service and also if the product isn’t what you want, customers can use the ‘Furniture Take Back’ service.
Speaking of this year’s achievement, Carole Reddish, IKEA Acting Country Manager for the UK and Ireland said: “we listened carefully to what our customers were telling us and invested heavily in improvements to the shopping experience.
“We know that we still have a lot of work ahead to ensure that all who shop with IKEA, both in-store and online, have a great shopping experience.”
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