The Swedish furniture retailer has a new app launched. Online shopping is also booming at Ikea.
After 70 years, it came to an end last December. The Swedish furniture retailer Ikea announced the end of its legendary catalog, which at peak times had a worldwide circulation of 200 million pieces and for many was more than just a furniture brochure. “Customer behavior has changed,” says Claudio Winkler, who is responsible for digital projects at Ikea Austria. “Digital channels are becoming more important.”
Ikea has been on the market with a new app (for Android and iOS) since the end of February. Customers can use it to search for furniture, create and share lists and buy sofas, beds and armchairs directly in the app. In addition, as in the past, there are lifestyle photos in the catalog in which the furniture is presented in the living area.
Store app retired
The app will also replace the Ikea Store App, which customers could use to find their purchases on the shelves of the Swedish manufacturer's furniture stores.
There is great interest in the new application. For a while, the app even topped the Apple and Google download charts in Austria. The app, which had already been launched in countries such as France, the Netherlands and Spain, has already been downloaded more than 14 million times worldwide.
Claudio Winkler, Head of Digital at Ikea Austria
Is the app the new Ikea catalog? “Not only,” says Winkler. She is another channel to get in touch with the furniture store. Up to now, more than 80 percent would have viewed furniture online before visiting the branch. After they were then “tested” in the furniture store, many would have ordered the furniture online again and had it delivered to their home. “You start in one channel and continue in another,” says Winkler, who calls it “omnichannel” in industry jargon: “The combination of online and offline is very important.”
Boost for online trading
As a result of the corona pandemic, online sales, as in other industries, also experienced a strong boost in the furniture trade. At Ikea, online sales went up 45 percent in the past fiscal year. “We exceeded our already ambitious goals in the pandemic by 50 to 60 percent,” says Winkler. In the large stores in Austria, up to 1,000 orders per day were processed during the third lockdown.
How will we buy furniture in the future? 3D representations and the virtual reality topic are certainly an issue. The furniture retailer has also been offering the Ikea Place app since 2017, which is based on the AR kit from Apple and with which virtual images of sofas, armchairs and tables can be placed in your own four walls. The app has been very well received, says Winkler: “We will continue to develop it.”
But a lot is happening in the background, says the Ikea manager. “We invested a lot in back-end systems in the past year in order to improve delivery options.” Since last summer, the furniture discount store has expanded its “Click & Collect” service, where customers can pick up goods ordered online, to include supermarket parking lots. Recently, Ikea customers can also pick up their purchases from more than 40 Billa and Merkur parking spaces throughout Austria.
Urban shopping
The market had changed even before the pandemic, says the head of digital at Ikea Austria. In addition to digital channels, the urban shopping experience is also becoming more important again: “People don't want to go to the outskirts, they want to shop in the center.”
The Swedish furniture retailer wants to meet this trend with a city Ikea, which will open next to Vienna's Westbahnhof this year. According to Winkler, there should also be a lot “digital” there. But many would not want to do without the shopping experience in the furniture store, says Winkler: “You can't eat meatballs online.”
