IKEA has opened its smallest store in the Netherlands. The first small store opened its doors in Leeuwarden on October 3, and if all goes to plan more of these Plan & Order Points could pop up in the centres of other Dutch cities.
When you think of IKEA, you probably picture the massive stores where you can spend hours exploring the countless showrooms and eating Swedish meatballs. The new IKEA store that recently opened in Leeuwarden is 46 to 63 times smaller than what you’re used to, at just 650 square metres compared to the 30.000 to 41.000 square metres that IKEA stores usually are.
IKEA calls this new store a Plan & Order Point, where the focus is getting advice from the store workers when designing or renovating your kitchen or bathroom, for example. "The store is an extension of online," marketing expert Nathalie Hogendoorn told RTL Nieuws. For people who don’t just want to order such a large purchase for the house on the internet, they can go down to the store to examine and feel the kitchen cabinet they’re considering and then order it there. There is also a limited number of products which shoppers can buy in-store, such as cushions.
The Swedish company has plans to open more of these smaller stores in the Netherlands. The Plan & Order Points would be located in centres of larger cities where there is a lot of footfall. Stores like this already exist in cities such as Hamburg, Vienna and London.
An advantage to having small stores in cities like Leeuwarden is that shoppers don’t have to travel to the larger stores located further away on the outskirts of cities like those in Groningen or Zwolle. Smaller purchases are also easier as you won’t have to walk through a huge store.
More of the small stores could show up in other Dutch cities in the near future, but IKEA spokesperson Jurriaan Zuiderhoek doesn’t want to reveal where yet “for competitive reasons”.
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