“Ikea, the home furnishings retailer everyone appears to love to hate, has seen its profits in the UK plunge by a third.
The Swedish giant, which has been the subject of attacks from Government ministers over the construction of its stores and from unwilling shoppers who see it as a retail hell, said pre-tax profits for the year to last August dived to £104m. That is a drastic slide from the prior year when they leapt 15% to more than £150m.
The latest reporting period takes in Ikea’s disastrous opening of its Edmonton store in north London, where there were reports of shoppers acting like animals, with some hospitalised. Sales in the year rose marginally to £1.1bn. The company blamed the collapse in profits on one-off costs such as extending and rebuilding various
premises around the country…”
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“IKEA, the Swedish furniture giant, is trying to make DIY shopping a less
hellish experience by simplifying its stores.
Two London shops have abandoned the loading bays and cut down on the number
of products to make it easier for customers to make a quick exit. And the IKEA
at Braehead, near Glasgow, has introduced easier-to-read boards to help puzzled
customers find the exit.
The company is even to expand a service matching up customers with local
joiners, who can put together the flat-pack furniture for a fee. In Wembley,
north-west London, IKEA has reduced the number of products on sale from 14,500
to 8,500.
The store, along with the one in Croydon, has abandoned the system of
making people park, then transfer to a parking bay to load up their
purchases.
A spokesman for IKEA Scotland said: “The concept of flat-pack is IKEA’s
bedrock, but in future you will be able to say, ‘I have bought three wardrobes
for my house and I’d like somebody to put them up for me’.”
Claire Smith
Scotsman.com
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