IKEA adapts to Indian taste, lifestyle and prices

Swedish furniture retailer IKEA opens first outlet in India at Hyderabad

One of the world’s largest furniture dealers, IKEA finally sets foot in India with its first store in one of India’s major tech cities, Hyderabad. Known for its ready-to-assemble furniture concept, the brand introduces some adaptations to its core idea, for the Indian market.

IKEA, the Swedish multinational company, opened its first store in India in the heart of Hyderabad Information Technology and Engineering Consultancy City (HITEC). The brand aims to reach 200 million people in the country over the next three years and to start off, it is offering 7,500 products, including 1,000 products priced below INR 200.

The company designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture, kitchen appliances and home accessories, but unlike the western countries, people in India are comparatively new to the concept of assembling their furniture themselves. Thus IKEA has come up with little modifications and introduction of new services for the Indian market.

IKEA’s Indian employees visited more than 1,000 houses to better understand the Indian lifestyle. They observed how families host impromptu gatherings, which led the designers to create more folding chair options. Likewise, the brand is offering lower cabinets and countertops keeping in mind that an average Indian woman tends to be shorter than Europeans and Americans. Further, since children often sleep in the same room as their parents in many Indian families, one model bedroom includes a child’s bed amid all the other furniture.

IKEA has also partnered with the home service provider UrbanClap for its furniture assembling service. As part of this collaboration, consumers buying certain furniture from IKEA can book furniture assembly services via the UrbanClap app or the website. IKEA will contribute in the training of carpenters on UrbanClap’s platform, skilling them to become professional IKEA assemblers.

IKEA auto rickshaws for home delivery services in India

Along with its tailored products, the brand has also introduced sustainable ways of operating in the country. IKEA will soon start its home delivery services using e-auto rickshaws (compact, three-wheeler vehicles), which are charged at the store using 4,000 solar panels installed on the building’s roof.
The rickshaws are not just ecologically smart and sustainable, but will also be easier to manoeuvre through India’s notoriously congested streets.

In addition, the company is also working on solar-powered charging in the store compound for customers to charge their e-vehicles during shopping hours. Also, its workers in Hyderabad will soon be offered an electric bus option for their daily commute.

While it has almost all the traits of a typical IKEA store, it has added a ‘Swe-deshi’ (a play on the word Swedish and swadesh, which means of or belonging to India) cuisine in their menu to adapt to the Indian palate. At its 1,000-seater restaurant, chicken meatballs have replaced beef meatballs, which is a popular dish on IKEA’s menu globally, and it has also dropped pork from the menu for India.

The brand is also committed to promote gender equality in the country and aims to achieve an equal percentage of men and women workers at all levels in the organisation.

The company has invested INR 10 billion for the Hyderabad store, which has a 400,000-square-foot built-up area, besides acquiring land in Mumbai, Bengaluru, and New Delhi where similar stores will be set up in the coming years. In the next phase, IKEA is expected to cover Ahmedabad, Surat, Pune, Chennai and Kolkata.