The Swedish furniture retailer, Ikea, will debut in India with the launch of its first outlet in Hyderabad on August 9. The store will offer a mix of its famed Scandinavian design with an Indian touch.
The Swedish furniture maker is adapting to the needs of the Indian consumer and is making changes in prices as well as the variety of products on offer. The customers will get a wide range of products to choose from that includes beds, chairs, cookware, mattresses, curtains, tables, lighting, kitchen trolley, ovens, stuffed toys and hangers, among many other things.
Ikea is coming to India with a promise to provide about 7,500 home furnishing products at attractive prices. "Our main priority is to create an inspiring and safe experience for both customers and coworkers. Opening the first Indian Ikea store in Hyderabad means a lot to Ikea and we want to offer the best possible meeting with Ikea for the many Indian customers," said Ikea Retail India's CEO Peter Betzel.
The massive 13-acre store has a 1000- seater restaurant, considered to be the largest in the country. Ikea will be offering a wide variety of dishes at a low price. A plate of biryani is priced at Rs 99 and samosas at Rs 10. The store has also replaced its traditional pork meatballs with chicken ones, which will be available at Rs 149.
The furniture retailer has a membership plan to offer under which patrons will get special discounts.
The Swedish home furnishing giant will also be launching a crèche at its Hyderabad store, which has been named as Smaland. This facility will give the people the choice to enjoy shopping leaving their kids safe at the crèche. Kids aged between three and 10-years-old can spend up to one hour at Ikea's free supervised crèche.
However, the retailer has removed knives from its 12-piece steel cutlery set as it was told that knives were not used much at Indian dinner tables.
"We did nearly a 1,000 plus home visits and asked consumers what they need and what they did not need. And it was very clear that they had no use for so many knives in the cutlery set, so we took them off to make it more affordable," said manager of upcoming Ikea Hyderabad store John Achillea.
