IKEA upbeat on E-commerce

Swedish home furnishing retail giant IKEA, which is set to kick-start India operations from Hyderabad six years after it announced its foray, is upbeat on e-commerce business opportunities with hopes that India could outshine global average e-commerce sales. In the backdrop of growing digitisation and e-commerce in India, IKEA expects to see its e-commerce sales in India to significantly overtake global average of around 8-10%. IKEA India’s first store at Hyderabad, coming up over 400,000 square feet at an investment of around Rs 1,000 crore, would house the furniture giant’s largest restaurant globally with a seating capacity of 1,000. The IKEA teams had visited over 1,000 homes in India with varied income levels and lifestyles to understand their needs and dreams before finalising around 7,500 varieties of home furnishing items to be made available at its India stores.