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IKEA Korea vows to expand reach through design philosophy
IKEA Korea President and Chief Sustainability Officer Isabel Puig, center, speaks during a press conference in Gangseo District, Seoul, Monday. On the left is Sarah Fager, a senior designer from IKEA Group based in Sweden. Courtesy of IKEA Korea
By Ko Dong-hwan
IKEA Korea to open smaller stores in Incheon, Daegu, Daejeon by end of 2027
IKEA is renewing its commitment to the Korean market, emphasizing its philosophy of “democratic design” as it seeks to reach as many consumers as possible with affordable prices and improved store accessibility.
IKEA Korea held a media day event on Monday under the slogan “Home Begins with You,” outlining how its democratic design philosophy aims to support the expansion of its offline and online presence here.
Key elements of the philosophy are low-priced furnishings designed by IKEA’s 10 designers. The company believes the most essential condition to appeal to the market here is affordability.
“How do we reach many people? It’s by affordable prices,” said Sarah Fager, a senior designer with 20 years of experience at IKEA Group, in a press conference in Seoul’s western Gangseo District.
“We don’t use design to add cost. We use design the opposite way. Design is used to create innovative and beautiful solutions. The way we do that is based on insight and research of homes globally.”
According to IKEA, democratic design uses five parameters — form, function, quality, sustainability and low price — in balance to create each product, allowing more people to access well-designed products at reasonable prices.
As part of efforts to improve consumer accessibility, IKEA Korea plans to expand its operations by opening more urban stores at significantly smaller scale compared with its well-known “blue box” megastores.
In November last year, IKEA Korea opened in Lotte Department Store Gwangju, marking its first small-size store in an urban commercial sector. Leveraging that experience, the company will open similar stores in Incheon, Daegu and Daejeon by the end of next year.
“The new small-size format in shopping malls, urban settings and closer to where people are is around 1,000 square meters and has over 400 selected products. Opening the permanent location in Gwangju was very meaningful to us because it was the first time we really got into a small format (unlike large-size blue boxes),” said Isabel Puig, president and chief sustainability officer of IKEA Korea, during the conference.
IKEA Korea last year posted 640 billion won ($434 million) in sales, up 2.2 percent from the previous year, and saw 62 million visitors, up 7.2 percent. Overall, the company sold 47 million items last year, and IKEA membership reached 5.1 million, a 20 percent jump from the previous year.