As more people have been forced to stay home, the interest in home furnishing has increased and online shopping grew significantly, said IKEA India on Wednesday.“As part of our reinforced commitment to India, we have accelerated plans to meet customers in the new reality, supported our co-workers and customers during the crisis, and also took care of vulnerable communities. We have been lowering our prices for many articles to become even more affordable for our consumers,’’ said Peter Betzel, CEO and CSO, IKEA India.The fiscal year 2020 (September 2019 – August 2020) has proved to be a significant one for IKEA India, and the company is looking forward to a strong and positive FY 2021 with a new store and smaller formats coming up in Mumbai and an increased focus on an omnichannel network, said the Netherlands-based Ingka Group that owns the homeware and homecare brand.This year, over two million customers visited the IKEA store in Hyderabad and over 25 million customers visited the brand online. The company said it distributed 4 million meals, 20,000 products and 1.1 million face masks/PPE kits in the country through UNICEF.Jesper Brodin, CEO, Ingka Group, said, many weeks during the year, the Ingka Group had to close 75% of the IKEA stores it operates across the world due to pandemic. “During the last six months, we managed to quickly adapt to meet the new needs of our customers. We are determined to create a better life for people at a time when the home has never been more important,” Mr. Brodin added.The Ingka Group has accelerated its retail transformation over the year, re-purposing its stores to fulfillment units, as well as implementing click and collect services (online), offering pick-up and ‘drive-through’ options and in some cases, even turning store car parks into COVID-19 testing facilities for the community. Despite the pandemic, the company has opened 26 new IKEA locations in Shanghai, Seoul, Moscow and Tokyo and also built a digital presence. The group has also witnessed a strong IKEA retail sales of €35.2 billion for the financial year 2020 (€36.7 billion FY19), as per the release.
