IKEA to offer e-commerce pick-up locations across Canada

IKEA, the world’s largest furniture retailer, plans to make furniture pick-up easier and more convenient for its expanding online business in Canada.

The Swedish company plans to open e-commerce pick-up locations at strategic locations across the country. Each location will serve as warehouse spaces where e-commerce customers can pick-up their items closer to where they live and not have to travel to the stadium-sized store locations.

The e-commerce pick-up locations will still be relatively sizeable, although the locations will only be a small fraction of the size of the real IKEA stores. Some locations could even potentially include a small retail area near the manned counters.

IKEA currently delivers all of the goods from its online sales in Canada, it does not offer a pick-up option at stores – a service that is only available in the United Kingdom.

“The ambition is to make IKEA more accessible to the many Canadians through a multichannel environment,” IKEA Canada spokesperson Madeleine Löwenborg-Frick told Vancity Buzz. “This will be accomplished by examples such as increased service offers, pick-up points and an improved ecommerce interface, all resulting in our customers having easier access to our products.”

Few details have been released about the e-commerce pick-up locations at this time as the company’s strategy is still being finalized, but a location somewhere in Metro Vancouver is likely given the region’s market size.

Currently, about 90 per cent of IKEA’s in-store merchandise is available online on a global basis. Last year, the company stated it had a goal of reaching $63.7-billion in annual global sales by 2020 – up from $37-billion in the 12-month period ending in August 2014. Raising the company’s online sale revenues will be crucial towards reaching the ambitious goal.

Electronics retailers Best Buy and Future Shop were amongst the first in Canada to start online pick-up kiosks at their store locations, as a way of tapping into the growing online shopping market. These pick-up kiosks are typically located at the front of the stores.

Source : Kenneth Chan - VanCityBuzz
www.vancitybuzz.com/2015/01/ikea-open-e-commerce-locations-canada/