IKEA cuts prices on over 1.000 products to lure cautious customers

IKEA Europe has announced it will cut the price of over 1.500 products in September to attract shoppers amid the cost-of-living crisis.

IKEA announces price cuts for September

Swedish budget furniture giant IKEA has announced that it will cut the price of over 1.500 products at branches across Europe this September.

The company said it would invest 1,2 billion euros in price cuts to lure in shoppers who have recently become more careful with money due to the cost-of-living crisis. Declining consumer confidence has impacted the budget company, which has now registered two consecutive years of revenue decline.

"The cost of living is increasing, and it's getting tougher and tougher for many people," Juvencio Maeztu said, according to Reuters. Maetzu is the CEO of Ingka, a holding company based in the Netherlands which operates 411 IKEA branches across 32 countries.

Maeztu also acknowledged that Europe’s affordable housing crisis is changing what customers are looking for when they visit IKEA. "For many people, home is a bedroom in a shared house, and it's even more important to offer storage and ​organised solutions”. 

IKEA redesigning products to cut costs

The CEO of another IKEA holding company based in the Netherlands, Inter IKEA, told Reuters that the brand was redesigning certain products and packaging in order to reduce production costs.

"We try to constantly optimise the cost picture by redesigning the products from the beginning," Jakub Jankowski told the news outlet. For example, packaging costs for the Pax wardrobe range have recently been cut by 70 percent.

Products seeing a price cut in the Netherlands this September include the Poang chair (from 179 euros to 119 euros), the Bestå TV bench and IKEA 365+ kitchen products. In the UK, the Kallax shelf will be reduced from 60 pounds to 49 pounds and Alex drawers from 70 pounds to 55 pounds.