What: Ikea is increasingly expanding its reach by opening locations in city centres.

Why it is important: Such a strategy emphasizes the interest of city centres and potentially creates new flows, which is great news for department stores, in addition to potentially opening up opportunities of collaboration with Ikea.

Ikea has been working on the past three years on smaller store formats, which opened in various cities across the world (LA, Paris, Moscow, Toronto and New York).

The idea is to reach shoppers where big-box retail is not available, by opening 800 to 900 sqm stores, located in the heart of cities and focusing on specific areas of interest (kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms).

Ikea is not the only big box retailer to explore such options: Best Buy for instance is also exploring similar ideas.

Ikea goes big for city centres smaller stores