16 October 2005
DUBAI -- IKEA, a member of the Al-Futtaim Group is planning a huge expansion and will inaugurate its new retail outlet around mid November, which is spread over an area of 35,000 square metre at Dubai Festival City (DFC).
In an interview with Khaleej Times, Tarja Arvela, marketing manager of IKEA, UAE said: "There has been huge demand for furniture and furnishing from IKEA in the UAE so the new IKEA store will be four times bigger than the Deira City Centre (DCC) store, the largest in the Middle East with more than 6,500 products.''
When asked about the reason for shifting from the DCC, she said: "It is not feasible to have two stores close by as it is not profitable and moreover, IKEA standards are mandatory for large stand alone stores with all the product lines. The DFC store will have 54 room sets for customers to envisage exactly how their homes can look.''
The furniture market in the UAE will experience tremendous growth for the coming years as multi-billion dirhams construction projects are underway in the UAE and other Gulf countries which will eventually boost the sale of various kinds of furniture, analysts predicts.
Dubai Festival City will be the third move for IKEA's Dubai Store which started operations on Zabeel Road in 1991 then relocated to Deira City Centre in 1995 in order to fulfill the requirements of its growing customer base for functional well designed furniture.
Regarding the reason for Ikea's success in the UAE and the fast selling products, she said: "Our strategy is volume sales at low prices and free delivery of our products. We offer a varied range from Swedish, Scandivian, Modern and Country, which caters to the cosmopolitan market in the UAE and the region. Moreover, the flat pack idea saves IKEA a fortune in transport, storage and sales space.''
The new IKEA store will have 300 trained employees with more than 2,000 new products and an exclusive Swedish Food Market and a bigger restaurant for the customers. Apart from this, there will be parking space for 1,200 vehicles for IKEA customers.
According to a report by Reuters, IKEA launched in Sweden more than 50 years ago saw sales reach 117 billion Swedish crowns in 2004 with 202 stores in 32 countries and visited by 365 million people in a year.
In the UAE, the various residential and commercial projects have increased the turnover of the furniture industry by 60 per cent, the combined turnover of imported and locally manufactured furniture together accounted for $1.5 billion last year, according to industry sources.
BY MOUSHUMI DAS CHAUDHURY
© Khaleej Times 2005
