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Ikea wants to use its new store on London’s Oxford Street to attract more city dwelling customers as part of a strategic shift to expand beyond giant out-of-town warehouses.
The shop, which will open on Thursday, is part of a plan to make the brand more “accessible” for customers living in cities, according to UK boss Peter Jelkeby. Tolga Öncü, operations manager, said it was a sign of the retailer’s ambition to “bring Ikea to where customers live, work and socialise”.
The Grade II listed building, formerly the flagship unit of retailer Topshop, has three floors and the equivalent of 5,800 square metres of retail space. About half of the 6,000 products on display, spanning storage boxes, plush toys and crockery, can be bought straight away, while larger items of furniture will be available for home delivery or click-and-collect.
Ikea opened its first UK city store in west London in 2022, having experimented with different formats such as planning studios, including one in central London that subsequently shut.
The first of its smaller inner-city stores opened in Paris in 2019, followed by Mumbai and Stockholm in 2022, in an effort to reach new customers as shopping habits changed.
The opening is a boon for Oxford Street, which has been hit hard by the shift to online shopping and a lack of tourists during the pandemic.
Large premises owned by department stores such as Debenhams and House of Fraser have closed. Meanwhile, dozens of smaller units were filled by souvenir and candy retailers until the local council began evicting many of them in 2023 for failing to pay property taxes.
Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, said the Ikea opening was a “vote of confidence in London, in our economy and in our plans to rejuvenate Oxford Street”.
In February, he launched a consultation on pedestrianising Oxford Street, arguing it would help the thoroughfare compete with other global shopping locations.
In the UK, Ikea employs almost 12,000 staff, has 21 full-size stores, one order-and-collection site and three plan-and-order sites. The first store opened 1987 in Warrington, north-west England.
The new Oxford Street store, whose opening was pushed back twice because of complex renovation work, will include a Swedish “deli” selling its famous meatballs.
