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IKEA will be launching next summer its second small-store format at the Scarborough Town Centre in Toronto.<\/p>\n
It follows the debut of the format launched earlier this year at the Downtown Aura location in Toronto.<\/p>\n
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Michael Ward, CEO and Chief Sustainability Manager, said the planned Scarborough store is part of the retailer\u2019s broader investment in sustainability, affordability, and omnichannel shopping experiences that help to make it more accessible to customers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are other ones scattered around the world. London, Paris, places like this. It\u2019s an exciting way for us to get a lot closer to customers who are more in city environments,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA few years ago, even pre-pandemic, we were getting much more interested in how can we get closer to people who live in cities. The whole trend everywhere around the world is more urbanization, smaller space living, people living, working and shopping in tighter areas in urban centres. The idea was how to respond to that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve built the company on these really big blue boxes that are more on the outside of the city. We started to look at and experiment with some formats.\u201d<\/p>\n Ward said the format includes 2,000 to 3,000 articles that customers can pick up and take away with them. There\u2019s also a food concept.\u00a0<\/p>\n The company said the new ground floor location in the northeast end of the Scarborough Town Centre will be about 80,000 square feet in a building formerly occupied by a Sears department store. It said the scaled retail concept brings home to life in a new way. It takes the inspiring IKEA experience to the doorstep of urban residents and is proving popular with hundreds of thousands of customers who have made visits to the downtown store since it opened in May 2022.<\/p>\n When asked if more of these concepts will be coming to Canada, Ward said: \u201cRight now we\u2019re looking. We\u2019re focused on the whole country. We\u2019re, of course, interested in continuing urban expansion. So we\u2019re looking. We don\u2019t have any plans set right now for more of these small format stores but we\u2019re always looking at the opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n IKEA has also released its newly-published 2022 Summary Report which reveals:<\/p>\n \u201cIf\u00a0you look at the year behind us, it was pretty unique, and lot of things going on, and not just us but I think everyone in the retail business as well that we needed to respond on. You start the year with the pandemic still upon us and sort of easing up as we went through the year \u2013 always leading with the health and safety of our coworkers and our customers first. That remained our prime priority,\u201d said Ward.<\/p>\n \u201cBut then having to respond to several things. All of the supply chain constraints. The things that drove that in the beginning and then the War in Ukraine. And so on. It really put pressure on the whole supply chain end to end. And also on top of that, rapidly changing customer behaviours and expectations and needs and so on. For us really interesting during the whole pandemic the home became so much more important for everyone because they were doing so much more in it. Working there. Educating their kids.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSo you have all of these things going on at once and so for me the big takeaway is the fact that we could respond in a way where we really made a fantastic contribution to maintaining the health and safety in our operations with our coworkers, helping out people in our communities, but we were also able to grow. We were able to transform the business very quickly to respond to everything having to do with online and omni and the services that are required. We continued to experiment. We\u2019ve also opened Plan and Order Points which are smaller formats in Montreal and Kitchener and we\u2019re going to open another one in the South Shore of Montreal soon.\u201d<\/p>\n IKEA said the 2022 Summary Report reflects a focus on making circularity and sustainable living solutions more relevant for customers across the IKEA business \u2013 from furniture to food. For example, Canadian consumers turned thousands of preloved products into in-store credit this year through the IKEA Sell- Back program, while more than 78,000 spare parts orders were fulfilled, and hundreds of Canadians attended Care and Repair workshops to maintain and extend the life of their IKEA furniture. Meanwhile, Canada has become one of the strongest global markets for the sale of plant balls, the recently launched plant-based alternative to IKEA\u2019s classic meatballs.<\/p>\n \u201cOur impact on the planet starts with the positive impact we make in the lives of our people. The continued growth and expansion we have achieved in Canada would not have been possible without the hard work, determination and skills of the co-workers who are at the heart of the IKEA Canada business. It\u2019s only fitting that we show our gratitude through our actions,\u201d said Ward.<\/p>\n Founded in 1943 in Sweden, IKEA is a leading home furnishing retailer. IKEA Canada is part of Ingka Group which operates 389 IKEA stores in 32 countries, including 15 in Canada.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/retailinsider.b-cdn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/IMG_5890.jpeg\")
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\n2022 Summary Report<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/retailinsider.b-cdn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/IMG_2461.jpeg\")
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