Hacker News Reader

Comment by padseeker | Hacker News Reader

Building an IKEA, even a mini IKEA, inside an existing mall in a major metropolitan city, i.e. Chicago, would be a massive success. I hate having to drive 20+ miles into the suburbs to get to an IKEA.

View on HN

Chicagoans have to drive all the way out to Schaumburg or Bolingbrook and somehow take the furniture back with them. It’s a big hassle. I think what is usually regarded as a downside of IKEA, user assembly, will be an advantage in cities where it’s hard to arrange for the transportation of furniture.

In Chicago I think a place like State St. would be perfect for IKEA. It’s the “second” shopping boulevard (with the main one being Mag Mile) where rent is cheaper and the businesses attract more locals as opposed to tourists. It’s also centrally located in the Loop where it will be more equidistant to the various neighborhoods. They would be well advised to sell a greater selection of office furniture being so close to millions of square feet of office space.

It would be neat to have something downtown on State street. IKEA has stuff that isn't as big as say furniture, and could be hauled on the CTA.

However my thoughts were more along the lines of the very near suburbs, where there's a fair amount of vacant properties.

I don't know how well things are going at the Lincolnwood mall, on Touhy and McCormick Ave, just on the border of the city. Carson's just closed, and the Room Place furniture store has moved in. There are a handful of underperforming malls on the outskirts of the city, and it would putting an IKEA would definitely drive of traffic and make it more attractive.

Millennials value convenience a lot. I think they would consume more IKEA, and more furniture/decor in general, if there was an IKEA downtown. IKEA would really have to narrow down its SKUs for that to work though. Alternatively, they can take the approach you suggested (near suburb) but also use that IKEA as a warehouse-like hub for cheaper and faster deliveries to Chicago with a greater selection.

Do IKEA deliver in the US ?

They have expensive delivery for a limited selection of items.

If you go to the store instead of the website, you can arrange delivery of anything. I think it's cheaper than the website delivery as well. You still need to gather your purchases, whether that's picking from the first-floor warehouse or waiting for the fetching from the closed stock part of the warehouse and then move it to another part of the store for delivery.

Does IKEA do smaller-format stores anywhere? Even the "small" (relatively) IKEA in Memphis, TN is still a 270,000 square foot space-- close to double the footprint of the Costco next door, and two stories in a good chunk of the building.

It seems to me like it would be hard to scale an IKEA down-- the showroom side needs to be large because assembled furniture is large, and the warehouse side also needs to be large to stock everything (unless IKEA changes up their business model to do everything by delivery, but then they've lost their big distinction from all the other furniture stores around).

There’s a small scale IKEA already in NYC. It’s situated uptown in a relatively high priced area and likely because of that, somehow the furniture and decor looks much nicer. I think it’s the same furniture but somehow through some well planed interior design it just looks nicer.

> Does IKEA do smaller-format stores anywhere?

In central Paris, there is one: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ikea-france-store/ikea-op... - I'm guessing it is slightly experimental.

Also, the Ikea In Vélizy (southwest suburb of Paris) only has kitchen & bathroom. It is smaller than a standard Ikea but not city-center small.

There are "city Ikeas" in several places, at least Hamburg, Coventry, and Taipei. It's pretty recent though.

Not necessarily. Ikea furniture has the principal advantage of being sized for the spaces you'd commonly find in cities. Typical furniture from a US furniture store wouldn't fit in my apartment. My Ikea "bedroom set" consisted of under-bed storage and a bed frame with slats. And my couch had enough storage under it that I kept all my hiking equipment in my living room. It was fantastic.

https://windsorite.ca/2020/01/ikea-windsor-to-close/

Central Rome has smaller format store which mostly has kitchen stuff.

There used to be a small IKEA on the high street in central Uppsala (Sweden) in the late 1980s, and a larger one outside the city. The small shop went away around 1990, no idea why since it's a university town where everyone gets around on bicycles.

I've never understood why they don't do this. I have to assume that the majority of their sales go to Chicago apartment/condo dwellers rather than suburban homes.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com