IKEA's Return to the Pride of Civilians

The modern minimalist design style and affordable price make IKEA style more and more popular. This influence will also be further extended as it expands. Especially in China, IKEA has changed its prices, changed its speed, and integrated itself into China with a more personal attitude.

Yu Jing is an IKEA fan. Every time he visits Beijing or Shanghai, he always needs to purchase a few pieces of IKEA household items. However, this situation has now changed. Just last month, IKEA finally settled in Guangzhou. On the day of the opening, more than 10,000 people had already gone to IKEA and were packed.

Not only does this buoyant scene appear in the Chinese market with only three stores, but other regions also have such crazy fans. In June this year, a few days before the opening of the IKEA Atlanta store, thousands of people were waiting in line. Some even waited overnight with a tent to get gift vouchers. There are no shortage of professional designers like Apple's Mac products in these fans.

In the eyes of these fans, the design of modern, minimalistic and loose components, and affordable prices are the reasons why they are following IKEA. They are viewing IKEA as a lifestyle.

The IKEA, which was founded in 1943, has also gradually expanded its market territory, for example by opening more stores in Russia, China, and Japan, thus further extending this influence.

Design surrounded by needs

Without IKEA, many people cannot obtain modern design furniture at affordable prices. This is a comment of some design professionals on IKEA, and “provide everyone with affordable products, so that more people enjoy quality of life” is also the entrepreneurial philosophy of IKEA founder Kamprad.

This philosophy has always been in the design concept of IKEA products. In order to design products that are both beautiful, inexpensive and feature-rich, IKEA has a total of 12 full-time designers and 80 part-time designers working together to select the appropriate materials and the lowest cost suppliers.

There are many examples like this. For example, the PS Ellan dining chair, in order to make its back foot strong and not easy to tip over, the design and development team spent a year and a half of research time, eventually using an inexpensive wood scrap and The material mixed with the plastic resin of the soundproof screen on the highway is produced. At the same time, the designer also designed the dining chair as six pieces so that it can be transported flat and assembled without screws.

"Platform Transport" has always been the core of product design since its invention by IKEA. This approach not only helps IKEA and consumers save on transportation costs, but also enables consumers to enjoy the joy of assembling furniture at home.

Not only this, IKEA is also closer to the local consumer lifestyle with customized designs.

But this is not the market strategy that IKEA learned from the beginning, but the experience gained in the fall. In the early 90s of the last century, IKEA had six stores in the US market. However, due to the lack of a real understanding of the local situation, the design of the product was such that the Americans could not stand. For example, the rooms in the United States were large, while the beds in IKEA were too narrow; The cupboards are too shallow to accommodate the large plates of American pizzas. The strong cultural differences have caused IKEA to lose money year after year. After eight years of losing business, it has to re-adjust its product line.

Nowadays, IKEA pays more attention to the real needs of local consumers than ever before. It also adopts corresponding promotion strategies for these needs. For example, in Taiwan and Hong Kong, IKEA took advantage of the limited space available in housing, and launched TV commercials to teach users how to use IKEA products to save space. The result was very popular.

The IKEA style is more and more able to seize the "stomach" of consumers and gradually occupy more and more consumers' living space. In 2004, IKEA Group's global sales reached 12.8 billion euros.

Speed ​​up the pace of expansion

The penetration of the IKEA brand will deepen as it expands. And mainland China is an important piece of its expansion.

Although IKEA’s own positioning is to provide products that customers can afford, in mainland China, its price has deviated from the local market and is considered as a middle-class gadget. So, when it opened its store in Shanghai for the first time in 1998, and later opened in Beijing, it won the scene of applause.

The reason why this phenomenon occurs is that most of IKEA products are produced abroad, and the transportation costs and import tariffs are relatively high. Moreover, there are no scale advantages in its operation, logistics costs and management costs are also high, and the site selection is in gold. Lots and other reasons.

This is naturally not what IKEA hopes to see, so IKEA adjusted its strategy in time and began to increase its purchases in China. In 2004, IKEA's procurement in China accounted for 19% of IKEA's total global purchases, making it the largest purchaser of IKEA Group.

Indigenous purchases have kept IKEA prices at a lower level. Up to now, the decline in product prices has reached 46%. Breakthroughs in price bottlenecks naturally bring about changes in performance. IKEA China's fiscal year 2004 turnover was 1 billion yuan. In the first eight months of 2005, the total sales and total sales of IKEA's Shanghai and Beijing stores rose by 345% and 500% respectively.

“The turnover of IKEA China in 2004 was less than 1% of global sales. There is still a lot of room for development.” Du Fuyan, president of IKEA Asia Pacific, is very optimistic about China’s future development. “We are confident that we will open in China in 10 years. Out of 10 stores."

The powerful pillar to support this growth is the price strategy, and localized procurement is the backing of this strategy. IKEA stated that it is expected that after five years, the amount of purchases in China will account for 50% of the IKEA Group globally.

In addition to the Chinese market, there are two markets where IKEA believes that the fastest growth rate is the United States and Russia. At present, IKEA has 25 stores in the United States. Its goal is to reach 50 in 2010.

Japan is also a market that IKEA is concerned about. Thirty years ago, IKEA had entered Japan, but because Japanese consumers at that time needed high-quality and superior textures rather than low-priced products, IKEA fell. IKEA intends to return to the Japanese market next year.

However, the pace of expansion of IKEA may not be very smooth, because it is now facing more and more competitors. For example, in the United States, Target Corp. is hiring related designers to develop low-cost furniture business, Kmart is also expanding furniture business with partners, and Japan's Nitori Co., France's Fly chain group, and so on.

Does IKEA continue to have so many fans following it?