IKEA Opens First City Centre Store

IKEA (Leiden, Netherlands), known for its sprawling showrooms, is opening its first city centre store as it responds to a shift in shopping habits to smaller local stores and online.

While IKEA has already opened a few stores closer to city centres than usual in countries like Britain and Japan, its new unit in the northern German port city of Hamburg is the first to be located in a central pedestrian shopping zone.

“We want to learn from this project and see what we can improve that we can then apply in other locations,” Johannes Ferber, IKEA expansion chief for Germany, said at a news conference.

While most IKEA stores serve as destinations for out-of-town shoppers, that type of shopping behavior has been halted by high fuel prices. Consequently, consumers are making smaller, more frequent purchases closer to home.